


Fallen

by Aliana



Series: Do No Harm [5]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, F/M, Gen, Gondor, Gondorian legal history, Houses of Healing, I stole epigrams from The English Patient; The History Boys; and The Things They Carried, Minas Tirith, Minor Character(s), POV First Person, Pre-modern proto-feminism, Third Age, Worldbuilding, women, working stiffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 103,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliana/pseuds/Aliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's one thing to survive the Siege of Minas Tirith, and quite another to imagine rebuilding one's city--and oneself.  A coming-of-age story for Gondor's "greatest generation."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Sons and Daughters

_Now he was listening with a pleasure because she was singing again, but this was quickly altered by the way she sang. Not the passion of her at sixteen but echoing the tentative circle of light around her in the darkness. She was singing it as if it was something scarred, as if one couldn’t ever again bring all the hope of the song together. It had been altered by the five years leading to this night of her twenty-first birthday in the forty-fifth year of the twentieth century. Singing in the voice of a tired traveller, alone against everything. A new testament. There was no certainty to the song anymore, the singer could only be one voice against all the mountains of power. That was the only sureness. The one voice was the single unspoiled thing._  
Michael Ondaatje, _The English Patient_

 

_What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket._  
Mrs. Lintott, _The History Boys_ by Alan Bennett

 

The woman stands outside the Great Gate and secures her belongings on the wooden cart, one of hundreds set to depart this morning. Horses stamp impatiently, and soldiers patrol the lines. Only a few days ago, the Steward’s edict went out: Minas Tirith is no longer safe. The City will be readied for war, and therefore emptied of its women and children, its old men. Exceptions will be made for the young boys who serve as message-lads, and for those women who serve in the Houses of Healing. They may keep to their posts if they wish, though they are by no means bound to them. Today, the woman will leave the only home she has ever known, dutifully taking with her the minimal amount of provisions and belongings refugees are allowed. She also takes with her a young nephew, who is as good as a son to her, as well as one of her two natural-born children.

Long have we given of our sons, she thinks, for all the good it’s done us. Now it seems only meet that they ask us for our daughters, as well. Of course, her own daughter has made the choice of her own, and though she is several months short of her twentieth birthday she is nevertheless a woman under the law. 

The mother regards her only girl, who is standing to the side. Beneath her smock she wears a plain blue dress, and on her upper right arm is the dark blue band that marks her for a healer. Her dark hair is bound up beneath a white cap. She is solemn and pale, with a wide-eyed and watchful look about her that bespeaks a whole roster of cares beyond her years. She stands up very straight. No one, her mother thinks with fierce pride and heartsick dismay, could ever mistake her for anything but a Minas Tirith girl, born under the darkening skies of the Third Age.

They are almost ready to go. The woman can tell that her daughter is struggling to keep the calm look on her face. Before this she has never spent so much as a night away from her family, as indeed the mother had never done before she got married. The mother smiles at her, and then inclines her head slightly to the side, indicating the two young boys waiting behind her, her son and her nephew. _For the children_ , that smile says, and the girl gives an almost imperceptible nod in return: _For the children_. She stoops and enfolds her brother and her cousin in tight hugs, giving them all of the expected admonishments to do as they are told, to help their mother and aunt. That she will miss them and await their return.

They’ll miss her too, they assure her. Do well in the Houses. They will bring her back a seashell.

And then her mother hugs her, for what, as both know, may be the last time. The mother thinks she can feel her daughter’s heart beating urgently and painfully against her, matching her own. She kisses her, and whispers something in her ear. The girl finally forces herself to draw away, nodding. And then it’s time for them to go.

The girl watches as the line of horses and wains and people departs, and lingers at the gate even after she cannot see them anymore. Then she turns and goes back inside, up to the City where she is needed.


	2. Greater Need

Of all the boys, there was one death that I remember better than others from the early days.

There were, in truth, a great many dying boys brought to us in those lightless hours. Perhaps I should not speak of them as "boys", for many had more than twice my years, but even the most tired and haggard among them looked, in some strange way, fragile and new as the life yet drained from their bodies. By March of that year, the City itself seemed a brittle shell of what it had once been, emptied now of all but the soldiers and guards, the statesmen and healers. I was one of precious few women in a vast martial camp of men and boys, a suddenly alien terrain that only played at being a real place. I came to dread those rare occasions in which I had need to leave the Houses and venture out onto the streets. I feared no assailants from the outside, not in those early days, but the vacant avenues and darkened windows of unpeopled shops and dwellings prompted me into a skittish, stumbling run on more than one errand, so eager was I to be out of their hollow-eyed sights.

In times of peace the Houses are reserved for the gravely ill, and they are light and airy and quiet. As a much younger girl, just learning my craft, I would keep watch at bedsides or go on tasks for my mother; on some silent afternoons I would come sharply into an awareness of myself, learning when I should shift and when I should keep still. I listened to my own breath and could feel the exact weight of my limbs, the way the skin stretched over my bones, there beside those whose own bodies were slowly failing.

But I was a grown-up young lady now, and all our land was being bled, and Gondor's strength was ebbing away. Situated as we were in the sixth circle, we healers were nestled in among countless councilors and clerks and the comings and goings of messengers, so news of the war should have come swiftly to us. As it were, we were rather isolated within our own wards and gardens. I learned little of the movements of companies and hosts, but knew what was coming, by way of the orders given to us. We took up our own defenses. We brought in what extra beds and pallets we could, laying them down so that their square edges touched, marching in columns down the lengths of the long halls. We stockpiled every scrap of clean cloth we found; in our storerooms we massed every herb known to our craft, and also some known only to our lore. All this we did as the light was leached from the sky, until one day seemed to emerge darker than the night which had preceded it.

I sat with Fíriel as we cut and folded countless yards of linen, watching as our finished work grew in soft piles at our feet.

"We could bind the wounds of several armies, now," she remarked, surveying the floor.

"Yes," I snorted. "Perhaps our good Warden wishes that we should tend to the legions of the East, as well as our own?"

She rested her knife-hand in her lap for a moment, eyebrows arched. "The Warden? Nay, thus far all our supply orders have come directly from the lord Aradîr." She shook her dark head in a manner that put me in mind of the way white-haired goodwives did when trying to ward off bad luck. "Neither healer nor surgeon," she added quietly.

This utterance was a long-standing refrain amongst those who worked in the Houses of Healing. Tradition held that while the Warden oversaw the staff and patients, it was the Master of the Houses, a statesman, who represented the Houses' interests in the City-councils. The Master was the one to whom the Warden must answer, and it was the Master who made the final decisions on many matters of supply, salary and the like. A good Master, my mother had told me, took care to listen to the Warden, and closely followed his counsel when making choices. A poor one, however, did not take the time to well acquaint himself with the workings of the Houses, and looked upon surgery and leech-craft as any other common trades, as they were in less enlightened nations. And the worst Masters were pure statesmen to the marrow, using the post only as a way to curry favor with their liege-lords, eager to ascend to higher appointments—neither healers nor surgeons, indeed.

In my lifetime, however, we had not had any Masters such as this, for it was said that the Lord Steward was a shrewd man who did not suffer opportunists kindly. The saying was mainly used to express mild annoyance or amusement at misunderstandings between men of the council and men of the scalpel. Lord Aradîr had been appointed Master some six months hence, when his predecessor had grown too feeble of eyesight and frail of hand to keep up with his required duties. I had never had any call to speak to Aradîr personally, of course, but he seemed a pleasant enough man, and as far I knew, he had yet to do any great wrong by us. Still, I found myself nodding in assent with Fíriel's statement, as I hoped his generous estimate would prove unnecessary.

I took another piece of fabric from the pile. "Do you think we'll really need all these dressings?" I asked, trying to sound as if I were inquiring about that evening's supper, though my voice rose slightly as I went on. "And will all those beds be filled, Fíriel?"

The other woman looked at me with large grey eyes. Of all the women in the Houses, Fíriel was somehow at once the gentlest and the most blunt. She was slender and fair, at least ten years my senior. She crouched at bedsides, patient as a cat, and occasionally told us lewd jokes when there were no men in earshot. Now she sighed and looked weary as she ran her fingers over the cloth.

"In truth? I cannot say one way or the other. 'Tis better to fill up the waiting hours, at any rate, though we may have fewer than we like, in the end."

* * *

  
From then on it seemed no long wait until the large groups of the wounded began arriving. Soon I could scarcely recognize our familiar Houses. The light streaming in from the windows was greyed and muted. The air was close, and swiftly became thick and tortured with the groans and pleas of injured men. Every bed was full, and the steely odor of blood lingered on, no matter how we tried to scrub it away. Practiced though I was, I was one of the younger women in the place, and had little experience with battle injuries. Though I carried knives in my kit, I had seldom had chance to use them. When I saw the first men brought in and laid out, ashen and soaked with red, I went round the corner into a little alcove off the main room, and sank to the floor with my head against my knees, hoping in my shame that no one would see me. Beads of sweat dotted the back of my neck; flecks of shattered bone danced against the darkness when I pressed my eyes shut.  
  
"Come." I opened my eyes to the clear, low voice and saw Fíriel standing above me, her slender hand extended towards mine. There was no judgment on her face. "We are all needed now." For a moment, I fixed my gaze blankly on the hem of her plain blue dress and pale smock, a mirror of my own garb, save for the new pink spots on her garments. Then I took her hand and she helped me up in one taut, strong motion, and led me back to our patients so that I might bloody my own fingers in earnest.  
  
Fíriel was a fine teacher, and so was necessity. I soon learned not to flinch when I probed a wound to see how deep the damage went. I stopped flinching, as well, when I had to push out an arrowhead, or clamp shut the source of the worst bleeding until the surgeons could come. I fetched water, cleaned and dressed injuries, and gave what words I could to comfort the men, although it seemed at times that anything I said would be deflected by the hard, flinty terror in their eyes. Still, we saved more of those earlier ones than we lost, which was no small comfort. All of the workers in the Houses had fallen into our own weary, uneasy rhythm by nightfall, our voices strained and hushed and our hands red and aching. Even as they stumbled and gasped and bled, the men brought news from the shattered outer defenses, tidings we both yearned for and dreaded. There were rumors of warriors from the South, tall and fell, and armies that swarmed like insects, and a Black Captain before whom horses went mad, and valiant men bent and quailed in horror.

* * *

  
"It's a miracle that this one made it to us at all," Fíriel murmured in my ear as we stood over one of our newest arrivals, a soldier brought in on one of the wains that had borne the survivors of the wreck of the Causeway Forts through the City Gates that morning. Word had come that day, passing from station to station: Lord Faramir could not hold the Pelennor, and now the river was overrun. It was only a matter of time. Men and women alike, we in the Houses lowered our voices and tightened our fingers round our instruments, biting back our fear.   
  
This young man's lack of color contrasted starkly with his dark, mangled livery and damp brown hair—his face was nearly the same shade as the bandage I had carefully applied to his throat, though a spot of bright scarlet bloomed swiftly upon it. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, and he was terribly cold to the touch. His breathing was a shallow, pained rasp. Wounds to the neck like this one were almost sure to kill quickly. "He may live through the night, at best," Fíriel added. "Ioreth wants me," she sighed, drawing a blanket up over the boy, "and when I find her it shall be no less than a quarter-hour 'til I discover what she actually wants. Until then I am sure I will hear all about her cousin from Lossarnach."  
  
"No doubt," I smiled wanly. "I'll see to him." I drew a black scrap of cloth from a pocket of my smock and tied it to the bedpost; in the Houses, this was the marker we gave to those we deemed beyond help, so that none of us need waste our time. I was running out, I noticed; I would have to go and find more, soon.  
  
"Thank you." Fíriel patted my arm lightly and walked down the narrow corridor that passed between the rows of beds. We had all learned to live in tight spaces in the past few days, and even many of the women and girls had begun to resemble soldiers on watch, passing one another with the briefest of nods as we moved through the aisles.  
  
I turned my eyes back to the boy. Above the bandage was a round face that reminded me somewhat of my youngest cousin's countenance. Merely a week ago I would have wept right there, in grief and revulsion, but now I had taught myself to float over it, my mind as clear and clean as the surgeon's knife before the first incision. I could look with something nearing indifference, everything clamped back neatly into a vague, manageable sense of dread. I wondered who had dealt this soldier his death blow, be it a Southron, or an orc, or some fouler creature of which we yet had no inkling…  _For the Pelennor is overrun, and now only time stands between the Dark Tower and the White City…_    
  
"Tar'!" A voice called out somewhere behind me, and then a young man in the same dark garb the dying boy wore was at my side, kneeling beside the bed. "Tarondor," he whispered, seeing the full extent of the damage. " _Valar_ , no…" He turned to me, and I saw that he had a bright red streak across his forehead, over his weary blue eyes. Another gash was apparent on his left shoulder; not a clean one, either, as whatever blade had given it had torn raggedly through the cloth. Still, he had fared better than most of his comrades-in-arms. "Is… is there any chance for him?" he asked quietly, although from his subdued tone it was clear that he had the answer already. "Any at all?"  
  
"Very little, I'm afraid." He swallowed and nodded. "He may live through the night," I added, allowing him to take in the information for a few moments before I went on. "Now, let us see what we might do for you, shall we?" I suggested softly. The soldier nodded again, resignedly, and pulled himself slowly up to sit on the edge of the narrow cot, very careful not to disturb his friend as he did so. He had the air of one who felt he ought to rend his clothes and daub his face with ashes, but was strangely grateful that the deed had already been done for him. Normally I would have asked him to follow me to the north ward, where we treated those wounds which threatened neither life nor limb.  _But why not?_  I thought, excusing myself to replenish my supply of water and dressings.  _Let him stay here. I will be ready if a case more needful than his should present itself._

* * *

  
"We were boys together," the soldier explained as I tended him, and his voice had a hoarse edge to it. I nodded.  
  
"I have not the time to give you stitches for this," I said as I cleaned the cut on his forehead. "You may have a scar, but 'tis not too deep." My mother had taught me very early on that I should always explain to my patients what I was doing. These days, I found myself able to follow this advice only intermittently.  
  
"Should I live long enough for the skin to grow over," he murmured.  
  
"We're thankful to all of you."   
  
He was silent for several minutes more, and when he spoke again I saw that he wore the calm, glazed expression I had grown familiar with over the past few days. I had seen it on too many faces to count.  
  
"Perhaps one day," he said slowly, "there shall be wars where no one needs to touch anyone else." He was smiling now, a thin ghost of a smile. "You would not have to touch a man to kill him, nor be close to him." He shut his eyes. "Perhaps you would not even have to look at him."  
  
I finished with his forehead and moved on to his arm. He opened his eyes again. They were the color of the sky, the last time the sun had risen.  
  
"You see, it would all be so much easier that way. No skin," he said, his voice catching slightly on the edge of the word, "and no blood."

* * *

  
There were a small number of rooms set aside, so that the healers might get some rest. We took turns sleeping, a few hours at a time. I bypassed the basin of thyme-and-lavender water we used for hand-washing, instead scrubbing my hands until they chafed from the ash and lye of the hard brown soap that we kept. The women's quarters were dark. There were only five pallets in the close space, all of them occupied. I shrugged lightly to myself before stripping down to my shift, folding my dress and smock into a corner of the room, and sliding onto a mattress beside Fíriel. The older woman was already asleep, and as I curled my own body next to hers I could feel her warm, regular breath on my skin. She smelled faintly of chamomile, and I recalled she kept a private supply of the stuff in a pouch at her waist. The scent reminded me instantly of my mother—her hand resting on my cheek as she and my young brothers and cousins bade me farewell—she would have stayed here, my mother, had she not the children to look after…  
  
 _Your City has greater need of you now, dear one. Go, and be brave, and I will see you again soon…_  
  
That night I dreamt of chamomile, and black wings scraping over a sky bluer than any I had yet seen in my waking life.

 


	3. Rations

When I awoke, Fíriel was already gone. I lay on the mattress a few moments more, and performed the little ritual I had made for myself of late: three slow, deep breaths before I went out to face the long rows of the injured men and to move among the other women as we took our tally of the living and dead. On the last breath, I pushed myself up and stood barefoot in my shift, dressing as quietly as I could among the sleeping bodies in that small room.  
  
Ioreth looked up as I re-entered the main ward, and she stopped me and caught my hands in her motherly, insistent grip.  
  
"Grave news, child, grave news this day," she said by way of greeting. "Lord Faramir has returned from Osgiliath, they say, but he fares poorly indeed! He has taken great hurt, and they say," and she lowered her voice, "they say he is dying. And now the City ringed round with fell armies and fell beasts, and our good Captain dying!"  
  
I took an involuntary step backwards. I had only ever seen the Steward's younger son from afar, but I had tended some of his soldiers, and from all their talk of their commander I felt as if I almost knew the man, myself. They spoke of him as men who have weathered great storms at sea are like to speak of a safe harbor.  
  
"'They say'?" I repeated, not quite understanding. "If the Lord Faramir is dying, then why is he not here? Have our surgeons seen him?"  
  
"Some of the men tell me he is with his father, my girl. They say that the Lord Denethor despairs, and will have none save himself attending to his son."  
  
"But that is folly! He cannot—"   
  
"Perhaps the Lord Steward wishes to keep the dying close at hand," a soft voice intoned behind me. I turned and saw the same young man whose cuts I had tended, the friend of the boy with the sliced throat. He looked much the same as he had the last time I saw him, sitting at his friend's side as I walked away, save that the grey crescents beneath his eyes had darkened. "Forgive me. I could not help but overhear," he added.  
  
I sighed and shook my head. What might this one want? I wondered. "There is nothing to forgive," I said, my tone perhaps more brisk than I had intended. "I suppose that if that is the Steward's bidding, there is naught we can do to alter it, and therefore little to discuss."  
  
"True enough, my girl," Ioreth put in, "though I still say that it gives much to speak of, even if 'tis not ours to decide. I will see you again soon enough." She patted my hand gently and bustled off, but not before casting a curious glance at the soldier.  
  
"Is there aught I can do for you?" I asked him. I would be expected to report to the Warden in a few minutes.  
  
"Yes, well—I never did thank you. You were very… kind to Tarondor—to my friend."  
  
I gave a modest bob of my head. In the beginning I had been almost afraid to speak to the men who came to us fresh from the battle; they were rough and grim, and their fear was a new kind of fear, their bitterness a new kind of bitterness. But now I was practiced, and I had words to give back to them. "It is the least we can do, for those who have risked life and limb to defend us. And it was no small kindness on your part, either, that you remained there with him."  
  
The young man shrugged. "He's gone—they took him away but a little while ago," he said quietly, and stared at the floor.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
He smiled, shaking his head quickly, as an animal might do to ward off a troublesome insect. His next words came more rapidly. "You must think me terribly strange, with what I said. I was weary indeed, and ill."  
  
I tried to remember. "About… killing someone without seeing him?"  
  
He nodded. "The day one man can slay another, sight unseen, would be the ending of the world, indeed. We do not wish for a different sort of war; a just end to our current one would be more than sufficient, I think."  
  
"Yes, I should think so." I did my best to return his smile, though my black-winged dreams were now pressing much closer into my mind. "And I do not think you to be terribly strange. I can see how one might desire such a thing." What were the words he had used?  _No skin and no blood._  Yes, I realized, I could see that desire clearly, myself. We were in the thick of it here, a mire of all things torn and ruptured and broken and unclean, and I could only imagine what had begat them on the field of battle. The impacts of metal against flesh, the crush of the fight, the movement against one's own will. I saw it too, for a moment, in his eyes, and felt I nearly understood. "I need to go, now," I said, "and report to my station."  
  
"Yes, that was what I would speak to you about," he said, with a hurried gesture for me to stay a moment more. "As I have been deemed… unfit to return to battle at the moment," he began, acknowledging his own injuries with a dark, scornful glance, "I wondered if I might be of service here. I am no healer, of course, but I know my field dressings well enough, and have a ready pair of hands wherever they might be needed. I cannot sit idle." He finished with a tone of uncertain hope, as if he were a new vendor painfully eager to move his wares.  
  
In turn, I cast an appraising gaze over him like a seasoned buyer. It was true, we might well be in need of more assistance, but he was clearly spent. The blue pupils of his eyes were ringed with red, from lack of sleep and a certain number of tears, no doubt, and he still wore his torn clothes.  _Perhaps the Lord Steward wishes to keep the dying close at hand_ , he had said to me.  
  
"The best service you could do for me—for all of us," I told him, trying to summon Fíriel's firm, gentle way of speaking, "is to go and rest yourself. I promise that you will heal more quickly if you do this, and knowing that would lighten my own burden a great deal."  
  
He stared back at me in return and I had to struggle not to look away. "I said that I cannot sit idle, good lady," he said, and the uncertainty had suddenly vanished from his voice. "Lying abed while my friends yet fight and die will do me much more ill than good—and  _that_  I promise you, unless you truly believe that I would hinder you in your efforts."  
  
There was a long moment of silence.  _Valar help me_ , I thought,  _this one might try to stare clear through to the back of my head_.  
  
"Very well, then," I sighed. "Let us go and see what the Warden would have from you."  
  
* * *  
  
Several hours later I was in the dispensary. There were no windows, and the rows of glass vials winked back at me from their high shelves, reflecting candle-light.  
  
"You ask for no little amount of poppy," said Elloth, studying her inventory with a fetching frown. Elloth, who was under the tutelage of our herbalists, was undoubtedly the prettiest girl in the Houses of Healing, and consequently the prettiest girl in the entire City for the time being. And although none us were enjoying the war, I could not help but suspect that she took a certain amount of pleasure from the knowledge of this condition. But then again, perhaps I was also slightly envious.  
  
"I know," I replied, "but Valacar wants it. Now, may I have it, please?" I folded my arms over my chest and tried to convey just the right amount of impatience.  
  
"It really is a lot," Elloth continued, creasing her brow as she looked at me. She was, after all, the well-learned apprentice herb-mistress, and I but a lowly blood-letter. "More than the surgeons usually ask for. 'Twould kill a man, if given all at once."  
  
"He knows that, Ell," I said wearily. "Now, can you please get it for me?"  
  
She shook her lovely head. "I'm sorry. Supply is very short. The herb-master said we are to dispense it only for the patients who will live." She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. "Just as well—we should be healers and naught else, I always thought."  
  
"Perhaps…" I said, and just behind my ribs, something snapped, like a thin thread stretched beyond its limit. I only realized what I was saying after the first words had left my mouth. "Perhaps if you came to the wards, if you saw the man that Valacar was going to work on before he told me it was beyond hope, perhaps if you saw him ripped open by some orc-blade, like a carcass in the butcher's shop, perhaps if you heard him cry out for his mother, then…" I stopped to catch my breath; my hands had made themselves into fists. "Then perhaps you might think differently on what  _we healers_  should do!"  
  
The other girl stared at me, and even in the dim light I could see the tears forming in her eyes. She was twisting her mouth in the way women do when they are making an effort to control themselves. This is not her fault, I told myself; sacrifices are necessary, in times like these…  
  
"Valar, Ell, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"  
  
"No," she said, taking a quick breath through her nose, her voice noticeably higher. "It must be terrible for you, that you would speak so. Please tell Valacar that I apologize." She blinked, and though a single droplet trailed down her fair cheek, she managed to raise her chin as her eyes met mine.  
  
 _Better to apologize to the man who will now spend a longer time dying_ , I thought, but I merely uttered a clumsy farewell. When I left, Elloth's face was such a beautiful picture of noble suffering that I did not feel half so sorry.  
  
* * *  
  
"Elloth sends you her apologies," I said to Valacar when I returned to him empty-handed, "but nothing useful."  
  
"Oh?" Valacar was among our best surgeons. He never talked down to the women in the Houses, and for that reason he was one of my favorites. Today his apprentice had been laid low with a fever, and Valacar had called me away from the main ward to help him on his rotation. At any other time his asking for me would have made me quite proud, but now I saw only the stark necessity of the situation. We had reached a point, I think, when endurance was valued higher than skill.  
  
"They're rationing it out now. Surgeries only. Elloth told me, only for the ones who will not—" I glanced over Valacar's shoulder at the pale man lying on his surgeon's bench, then quickly looked away. He had passed out, I was relieved to note, but then, Valacar had told me that he had been going in an out of wakefulness for nearly an hour.  
  
Valacar nodded. I had never seen him looking so tired, and it unsettled me. We were all a sight grimmer now, as if a slow poison were leaching into our veins.  
  
"I understand the idea of it," I went on, trying to pull my thoughts together, "but it seemed as though we had so much, in the beginning. I mean, how many more days—"  
  
"We'll find a way."  
  
"And Elloth is such a stupid biddy, anyway, she wouldn't know about it at—"  
  
He raised his hand slightly. "You're shouting."  
  
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. He was a surgeon, after all, not some gossipy old goodwife, and had no need for a burst of girlish spite. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." Whatever had snapped in my chest was now aching. A rushing noise filled my ears.  
  
"You look tired," he said, not unkindly, though his voice sounded distant to me.  
  
"No more than you."  
  
"I suppose you're right," he smiled.  He grew grave again and looked at our patient. "We'll find a way," he repeated, and he went over to the small table that held his surgeon's tools. He selected a large knife and very deliberately began to hone it with a small whetstone that was also there.  
  
"I—oh."  
  
"There is a spot in the north garden," he said, without looking up from his work, his words undercut by the scrape of metal on rock, "a little circle of young trees, with a white stone fountain at its center and a small bench. You may not have seen it, yet."  
  
"I think I know it."  
  
"Good. Pleasant, is it not? I want you to go and sit there and rest, and come back in ten minutes."  
  
"But—"  
  
He looked up at me, his face neutral. "Ten minutes. I promise I'll be here when you return." Then he turned his attention back to the blade in his hands.  
  
* * *  
  
When I went out to the gardens, I did not find Valacar's little circle. I simply rounded the corner of a high green hedge, and a moment later I found myself on my knees next to a flower-bed, retching. Breathing hard, I shifted myself so that I was sitting upon the grass with my legs tucked under me, face to face with a small white statue of a lovely maiden. I stared at her blank, round eyes until the world ceased spinning. She looked very solemn, but enviable in her pale stone serenity.  
  
"Are you all right?" I turned around and saw a well-worn pair of boots on the ground beside me. Looking up, I saw that they belonged to my insistent soldier friend, standing above me with an expression of mild concern. Had he been witness to that whole pitiable performance?  
  
"Fine—fine, thank you," I stammered. He offered me a callused hand and helped me up. I sat down on a small bench near the statue. He sat down as well, at a respectful distance—there was already some impropriety to it, of course, a girl and a young man alone together like this. He was wearing a clean shirt, and his dark hair fell more neatly about his face.  
  
"It seems like it would take a great deal to upset you," he said quietly. I gave a mute shrug in reply. "I'm sorry if I was rude to you, before," he continued, after a pause. "It was not my intent."  
  
"There was no harm done," I said, tonelessly.  
  
"This is quite a place," he observed. Then he was quiet again, facing my silence for the second time in as many days. "Do you want…would you like me to leave?"  
  
I looked at him, and wondered what he knew of these gardens. During my lifetime, entire portions of Minas Tirith had been left empty and silent, the streets and buildings falling into disrepair. Through all this, however, the Houses and their beloved gardens had remained well-kempt—this was no small source of pride for our Warden. The hedges were trimmed back nicely, the flowers well-tended, the fountains and statues kept free of cracks, all for the benefit of those who came seeking healing and respite. But now the sky was a murky, opaque shade of brown, and the loudest clashes from the battles below us reached even to the sixth circle. All our meticulous care seemed to be a mere trifle, a quaint little joke when set against the chaos that was now beginning to consume us, and I realized I did not care to be alone here.  
  
"No. No, please, stay if you like." I noticed that the leather bag of a courier had taken the place of the sword he had worn when I treated him. "Tell me, did the Warden set you to work?"  
  
"Yes, and I am grateful that you took me to him." He gave a short bark of laughter. "Although I must say, I am certainly the oldest errand-boy in the entire City. The moment I saw your Warden, I should have known he would not be one to let a simple man-at-arms lay hands on his patients!"  
  
"Message-taking is an important duty," I assured him, and he gave a conceding shrug. "And how are those cuts?"  
  
"Mending, thanks to you. And what have you done, since we parted ways?"  
  
I went through the duties in my mind, trying to boil them down. "I helped to set a broken leg, I fetched a good deal of clean water, assisted in the surgery-rooms and…" I ventured a sidelong glance at him. "I made an apprentice herb-mistress cry."  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "Really? Was it that very pretty one?"  
  
I straightened up on the bench. "There are no very pretty apprentice herbalists in Minas Tirith. They're all plain as cows."   
  
He snorted, and laughed again. "Then you must have some very comely cattle." I smiled in spite of myself.   
  
At that moment, a high unearthly shriek pierced the air. It was as if the sound of Valacar's knife scraping against the whetstone had been enlarged a thousand-fold, but there was a new malicious depth to it, as well. There was death and rot and dark triumph in that noise, and I felt as though it might stop my heart beating within my breast. We both covered our ears.  
  
"What  _was_  that?" I whispered when the abominable utterance had passed. I shuddered at the chill that had suddenly come over me; it was as if the coldness were lodged within my own body, as if there were some icy mass at my center.  
  
"That was the Black Captain or one of his ilk, most likely," he replied, clasping his hands together. His breathing was audible as he looked around quickly, as though said Captain were lurking behind the trees and hedges at this very second; I could have believed that, so closely had the noise rattled inside my ears.   
  
"Have you heard the stories?" he finally asked. I nodded. "They have come on winged steeds, horrible creatures—it is said that the Dark Lord himself horsed them so."  
  
"The Dark Lord," I repeated, closing my eyes. "Tell me," I said slowly, "what other news of the battle?" We had changed places, I realized, for now I sounded very much like he had when he inquired about the chances of his wounded friend.  
  
He drew a deep breath, and leaned back on the bench, resting his weight upon the heels of his hands. "As your good dame Ioreth said, the City is now besieged. There is a great host, more orcs and men than anyone can count." As he laid out the statements, one after another, it became clear to me that this was a message he had delivered before, or else had heard spoken often. "And trolls, and all manner of fell creatures under the hold of Mordor. They have brought great towers and engines with them, and will not rest until the outer wall has been breached. Shall I go on?"  
  
My stomach tightened, but I nodded. "It would take a great deal to upset me, sir," I said, giving his phrase back to him as evenly as I could manage.  
  
He gave another smile, which vanished almost as soon as it formed on his lips. "Fair enough," he assented, and stared up into the darkened sky. "Rohan has been summoned to our aid, but there has been no sign yet of King Théoden's men, and we know not what numbers he has at his disposal… By the time they arrive…  _if_ they arrive, it may be too late for Minas Tirith."  
  
I dug my fingers into the edge of the bench. It was one thing to toil under a cloud of dread, another thing entirely to hear the long-feared news in plain words from the mouth of someone else. "So we come to the end, then?" I thought of my mother, and realized I would never see her again.  
  
"Aye, perhaps," he nodded. "But nothing yet is cer—" He was interrupted by another dreadful screech. The same wave of ice washed over me, and to my ears, at least, this call seemed even closer than the first. I shut my eyes, and even after the cry was finished, I kept my hands clamped to the sides of my head, for I could have sworn that I heard its echoes rebounding off the white stones of our City, or else it had merely left its black mark vivid upon my mind.  
  
After some moments I felt another hand over one of mine, and I opened my eyes. He gently pulled my hand away from my ear, and held my fingers between his palms. I let my other hand drop. His grip was rough but warm.  
  
"But nothing yet is certain," he finished.  
  
No, nothing yet is certain, I wanted to say. Except that we will soon run out of pain-draughts, and that my favorite surgeon has no doubt finished driving his knife through his patient's heart. Nothing yet is certain, save for that hideous death-call, which seems now more real to me than all the bread and water I have tasted in my life…  
  
But I said nothing. I simply let him hold my hand until I felt warm again, and then for several moments more. I looked down at our fingers, pressed together over the cool stone of the bench. We were only sitting in a garden, that was all, and for the time we were safe.  
  
"Bold of you," I remarked dryly, but made no move to pull away.  
  
"You took care of me, once," he replied. "And Tarondor." He carefully released my hand, depositing it into my lap as if it were some breakable object. He stood up. "Thank you for your company. Mayhap I will see you later."  
  
"Mayhap." I watched him go through the arched doorway that led back into the Houses. My legs felt stiff as I rose, as if I had been sitting for hours instead of minutes. I dusted off the front of my skirt once more, and went back inside through those same doors, because Valacar would surely need me again.

 


	4. Kindness

I spent the evening hours tending to the dead. We carefully wrapped the corpses (How foolish I had been, to think that all our linen would be for bandages only!) and carried them to the center atrium—from there, they would be taken away to be burned as a guard against pestilence. Some of the more able-bodied men had volunteered their assistance; a few of them showed me how to strip away the more complicated pieces of armor, which proved helpful.

“Do you always give your dead to the fire?” one of the soldiers asked me. His faint accent told me he was from Lossarnach; the gentle lilt in his tone was not unlike Ioreth’s.

“No,” I replied. “There are tombs, usually.”

He considered this for a moment. “That sits ill with me, the thought of lying between the stones.” He shook his head. “When I die, I want to be covered in earth. It seems the more natural way of things.” He closed another pair of glassy eyes with a gentle pass of his hand. “Meaning no offense to your Minas Tirith customs, of course,” he quickly added.

“None taken.”

“We might all have a tomb of stone, soon,” one of the other men put in, “whether we wish it or not.”

The man from Lossarnach shot a sharp glance at the other soldier. “Hush!” 

We went back to work.

***

I had never been a particularly imaginative girl, but now that I was finally removed from childhood, my mind began to bloom with subterfuges and fantasies. These men had never been alive, I convinced myself, and if I followed far enough along that route, then the next natural conclusion was that they were not men, at all. The dead were nothing but weights that pinned the living to the earth.

But at night, I dreamt that the corpses sat up from their shrouds and spoke to me. I was not frightened during the dream, but when I awoke I could not go back to sleep. I lay staring into the darkness, and then I got up and went to the kitchens to make sweet rolls.

***

The dough was solid comfort in my fingers, and I savored the graininess of the flour on my palms. In the silence of the empty kitchens, I tried my best to slap the soft mass down to the tabletop with impressive, authoritative smacks the way that Cook used to, but I could not get the rhythm quite right. Had Cook been there, she would have scolded me, then brushed her thick fingers gently against my cheek in that peculiar manner of hers, marking me with the lightest trace of flour. But she was gone from the Houses, now, along with all the kitchen-staff, cleaning-men and serving-maids.

I had known, of course, that everyone not needed directly for the war would have to be cleared out. Still, I had felt a pang of shock on that morning after the last evacuations when I came into the kitchens and found her gone, for she had ruled over these large, warm rooms as surely as the Steward himself governed Minas Tirith. She was a formidable woman with big hands, and no one really seemed to know what her name was, or if indeed she had one to begin with. She moved about swiftly with sharp orders on her tongue, always accompanied by the clang of pots and pans, and no one dared contradict her.

But children were her weakness, particularly the nervous, shy young boys and girls who arrived at the Houses to begin their apprenticeships. She would wink conspiratorially at us, and press an apple or a bit of honey cake into our hands, and we adored her in turn. The group of apprentices with which I had entered had been the last one of normal size to come to the Houses. In the years that followed, the numbers declined rapidly, although in truth they had been steadily dwindling since my own mother had been a girl. There were no questions about the boys, for more and more were going for soldiers with each passing season, but the dearth of girls was a small mystery. With the marked lack of children in the Houses, my peers and I had been destined to remain always as Cook’s “babes,” even if by now we were nineteen and twenty and twenty-one.

Now I sighed, because the kitchens were empty, and because I knew my dough wouldn’t be quite right. It never was, really, but I was resolved to die with sweet rolls in my stomach. At the sound of footfalls, I looked up to see one of my fellow “babes” enter the room—Valacar’s apprentice.

“Hello, Laeron.”

“Oh—hello,” he replied, looking startled to see me. In the years we had known one another, Laeron had grown from a nervous, lanky young boy to a nervous, lanky young man. I suspected that the Warden had paired him with Valacar in hopes that Laeron might absorb some of that surgeon’s calm, decisive nature for himself—though if that were the case, it did not seem to have worked very well thus far.

“How is your fever?”

“Ah…finally broken, thank you.” He walked over to a set of small cabinets that stood against the wall and began to rummage around. “I’m going back to work, soon. Just making some tea, to be sure that the sickness stays away for good.”

“An excellent idea.”

“Mm…” he nodded quickly and flicked his gaze over to me. “Would you like some, too, then?”

“No, thank you. Do you want a sweet roll when they’re finished?”

“That’s _sweet_ rolls?” he said, turning around to eye the dough in my hands. “Yes, please, of course.” And then he dropped the tea-kettle lid, which fell to the floor with a resounding clatter.

When his tea had finished brewing, he sat across from me, hunched over the steaming cup while I formed the dough into rolls.

“You…you were with Valacar this afternoon, weren’t you?” he asked cautiously after several silent minutes.

“Yes, I was.” I set down another finished roll.

“Nothing…happened, did it?” I could see his fingers twitch as they gripped the mug.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing out of sorts, say.”

“No,” I swallowed, and pinched the next handful of dough so tightly that it was good as ruined, and I had to start over again. “Nothing out of sorts. Why?”

“Because, well…he was called up to speak with Lord Aradîr today. In the Master’s offices.” He took a hurried sip of tea. “Aradîr seldom calls anyone up to meet with him like that. And even when he comes down to make a visit to the Houses, he rarely speaks to Valacar. If ever there’s a problem with the staff, it’s the business of the Warden. Everyone knows that.”

“And Valacar didn’t say why he was summoned?”

“No. It sounded as though he might not know, himself. Although he never tells me anything, anyway.” He took another sip. “At any rate, he might have been more likely to tell you. He likes you better, I think,” he added quickly.

“That can’t be true, Laeron.”

“Today he said that you could be argumentative, at times…”

I set down another roll. “I am _not_ argumentative!”

“…but he was smiling a bit, when he said it.” Laeron rotated the cup in his thin anxious hands. So different from his teacher. I remembered the way Valacar had looked as he dragged his knife over the whetstone this afternoon. A model surgeon, calm and decisive. Had those qualities served him poorly today? “You’ll keep that close, won’t you? The business with Aradîr, I mean.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” When I had returned to the surgery corridor after sitting in the gardens, the man was dead and Valacar was pulling a sheet over him. We avoided one another’s eyes for a long time after that.

***

Naturally, the rolls came out burnt. Laeron was polite about it.

“Well, it’s not so bad, really,” he said. “They’re warm, that’s the thing. Much better than all that dry bread.” Somewhere below us, through layers of stone, a low rumble drifted up from the battle.

“And much blacker,” I replied. I took another bite. It was the aftertaste, more than the actual flavor, that was a problem. Just a hint of charred bitterness, which was like a sweetness that had tried too hard and ruined itself. That was fitting, I decided.

“I might go down,” he said abruptly. “Down to the battle, I mean.”

I stopped mid-chew. “What? To fight?”

“Well, why else?”

“But we need you here.”

“They also need men on the walls. Maybe even more than we need surgeons.”

His fingers drummed lightly against the table top. I wondered if he had ever even held a sword. “Laeron…would you send _me_ down to the battle?”

“You? Of course not!” he snorted. But then my meaning fell into place, and he stared into his mug. “That’s not the same.”

“Well, forgive me, but you’re no more a warrior than I am!”

He looked up at me again. “Well, I think that…well, there’s a choice, you see. And I think I would rather at least _try_ to help, in the end, than wait here and…” He trailed off.

“And be slaughtered, you mean?” I stared at him.

“That wasn’t what I meant!” Another rumble came up from the battle, and then we were both silent. His hands still clutched nervously at his cup of tea, as if seeking a point of anchor there. _For the Valar’s sake, Laeron_ , I thought, _just be still for a moment. Just one moment._ The wish was as bitter and urgent as the burnt taste in my mouth.

Strange, the things I wanted. Before all of this, I could see all my desires spooled out before me for miles and miles, the languid wants of someone who believed firmly in the coming year, and the year after that, and the year after that. I had wanted a dress like the elegant red gown I had glimpsed in the milliner’s shop; I wanted my brothers and cousins to be old enough so that they would cease running wildly through the house; and I wanted, one day, to have a baby girl who would fall asleep in my arms. But now life was as narrow as the aisle between the sickbeds, and if the things I currently wished for had shrunk to match that proportion, then the wishes themselves had doubled in force and clarity. I wanted to work my hands in the dough until my fingers cramped and I forgot the warmth of fresh blood. Lying in the darkness beside Fíriel, I wanted to roll over and bury my face in the back of her neck and breath chamomile all night. I wanted to go back and find that injured soldier in the gardens once more. And more than anything else I wanted my mother to be here. Just to see her again.

But I was greedy, and I knew it.

“If I do go,” Laeron began quietly, “do you think you might… Well… Would you tell Elloth goodbye, for me?”

I put my elbows up on the table so that I could rest my head between the heels of my hands. “You tell her, Laeron. Tell her, yourself.”

“Or…” he said, and his mouth might have twitched a little, “I could just give her one of these sweet rolls.”

“Yes,” I replied. “And she’d love you forever.”

***

Even in the dark I knew the southeast gardens well, and after leaving the kitchens I cut through them to go to the south ward. Picture a rough cross within a circle, and you have the shape of the Houses of Healing; the buildings form the cross’s arms, branching out from the center atrium, and the gardens, in turn, fill out the circle in the spaces between. No few Wardens and healers have questioned the efficiency of this design over the years, but so many parts of the White City are set in stone, in both theory and in fact, and so the Houses stand more or less as they always have.

A man was sitting on the ground by the nearest entrance to the south ward, and as I came closer I recognized him. He had been brought in with a foot wound two days ago, and now he was seated with his back against the wall with his legs stretched out before him. As soon as he had been able, he had sat up in bed with a knife and began to silently whittle little figures out of odd scraps of wood he had somehow procured, one after the other, his face blank as he worked. The figures themselves had no faces at all. They were plain and crude, all more or less the size of a child’s palm. They did not have any sort of balance to them, and so could not stand up by themselves; he set row after row of them lying either on their backs or their fronts. Because they had no faces, it was impossible to tell which.

He appeared to be carving at this very moment, though I could not think how he could manage it in this lack of light. He looked up as I approached.

“Would you like a sweet roll?” I asked him. I was carrying the more salvageable specimens in a knotted-up cloth bundle. “They’re burnt, but only a little.”

“Well, that’s good of you,” he replied. His voice was slow and rough, as if he had just woken up from a long sleep. He put down the knife and the wood scrap. “Come over here.” I did, and he looked up at me through the darkness. “I know you. Don’t I?”

“I was working in the wards when you came in.”

“Well, perhaps there was some other time, as well. Busy girl, are you?"

"I suppose so."

"And you were born here?"

"Yes."

"Busy Minas Tirith girl," he nodded, as if he had just discovered something important. "And did they make you stay here?"

"No. No, I wanted to."

"A brave one, then." He gave one more strange, self-congratulatory nod. "Does what needs to be done." He inclined his head to one side. "May I ask you one more thing?”

“All right.” This was getting tiresome.

I had to lean in because his voice was low. As he spoke, he took a bit of the cloth at the hem of my skirt and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.

“No, I don’t think so,” I replied when he was finished. I stepped backwards and pulled my skirt from his grip. This was not the first time I had been propositioned.

“With some of them, it’s not really their fault,” Fíriel had told me. “Men are lonelier creatures than women.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Depending on how many you get, you can afford to be selective.” She had smiled slyly while she watched my face as I tried to determine whether or not she was being serious, and then she had walked away.

The man sitting below me did not change his expression at all, but simply picked up the knife and figure and went back to work.

“Did you know that the Gates have been breached?” he said. I stared at him. “So I don’t see what you’re holding out for.”

I dug my fingernails into my palms and turned to go inside the ward, but his next words froze me.

“You don’t know kindness, little one. You can’t tell kindness from killing.”

I drew a sharp breath and turned back towards him, which was, of course, what he had wanted. He smiled horribly and pressed the tip of his knife into the little piece of wood in his fingers. Whatever he knew and however he knew it, it meant little if we were all to die soon, anyway. But now I realized I could see him more clearly; I could see that his hands were strangely mottled, and that his face was drawn, and I realized, too, that I felt warmer than I had in days. There was the sound of horns, distant but unmistakable. I turned away swiftly and passed through the south ward, and from there I ran to the eastern walls, where a score of others had already gathered: The Sun had risen, and Rohan had come at last.


	5. One of Us

"…rode with the coming of the dawn…"  
  
"…and I saw it—dark smoke rising…"  
  
"…black ships at Pelargir, at my home…"  
  
The Houses had never been this crowded. Everywhere I turned, there were voices and standing bodies. Our soldiers and guardsmen and message-lads were there; new arrivals, fair-haired men from the Mark, were also to be seen, as were a few who'd come from the coast, downriver. A murmur, low and urgent and edged with hope, was passing through the crowd.  
  
"…slew the Black Captain…"  
  
"…army of dead men at the docks, grey and fell, and I saw it…"  
  
"… _healed_  him, though he was dying…"  
  
I stood on my toes and tried to peer over the forest of heads and shoulders that had suddenly grown up in the north ward. The tightest knot of people seemed to be wound around a tall, dark man whose face I could not see. Our Warden was making his way through the crowd to stand near him, speaking above the others' voices, trying to enforce some semblance of order; it was unusual to see him like this, for he seldom ever shouted or spoke very loudly—but then again, he seldom had need to. I returned to the flats of my feet, then went up again. There were no other staff members in sight. The Warden's gaze finally lighted on me, and he beckoned me over with a motion that told me I should be quick about it.  
  
By the time I had shouldered my way through the crowd to stand before the Warden, the tall man was gone. In his place was another, who stood serenely as the Warden spoke to him. The Warden turned to me and placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. He looked exhausted, but there was a strange sort of light in his eyes.  
  
"Listen carefully," he said, speaking rapidly and firmly. "A man from the North, a Ranger who came to the battle, has come to the Houses. He has healed the Lord Faramir, and two others who were grievous near to death, and he will yet heal many more of our men." He paused and glanced at the one beside him. "And this is the Lord Elladan, his…" He lingered on a note of uncertainty.  
  
"Kinsman," Lord Elladan put in gracefully. His voice was deep but oddly sweet-sounding. His face was unlined, though he did not seem young to me.  
  
"…kinsman," the Warden repeated, although his countenance betrayed a moment's puzzled skepticism. "Lord Elladan and his brother are healers in the way of their own people, and they have most kindly offered their aid, as well." He stepped to the side to avoid further jostling by the crowd, and his grip on my shoulder tightened. "You will take him first to the ones whom  _we_  cannot save, for those are the ones in greatest need of gifts such as his. Stay in the north ward; the others have already gone to the south, and to the surgery corridor. Understand?"  
  
I nodded, although my eyes were now on Lord Elladan.  _…in the way of their own people…_  So he was not a Man, at all—a strange, nervous thrill passed through my heart. The Elf smiled at me, and I realized I was staring very rudely.  
  
"Good," said the Warden, releasing me. He gave me a final glance, then looked at Elladan, and then he straightened his spine before disappearing into the throng once more, as if steeling himself to face the unfamiliar street-scene that had once been our Houses.  
  
***  
  
So I led Lord Elladan to the dying men. They were easy enough to find, for we had tied our little black markers to the posts of their beds. Long before he had finished, I realized that the Elf could have found them by himself, without such crude signs affixed; but he was a foreigner, and someone important, as well, and the Warden most likely thought it would have been poor manners to let him go to work completely unaided, even if the only available escort was a callow young slip of a healer-girl.  
  
I could scarcely take my gaze off of him. He moved with an unnerving silence. His eyes were grey, like my people's, but wholly dissimilar. Our eyes are the shade of storm clouds, and shadows on white stone. His eyes were the color of rain. He would shut them for long moments as he tended to the men, as if he were trying to recall something from long ago. He laid his slender fingers upon pale foreheads and spoke words in his own language. Occasionally he would ask to use an instrument or a bit of herb from my kit, but mostly he worked empty-handed; to this very day I cannot explain exactly what it was that he did. It seemed to me as though he were conducting a private transaction with each patient, building up a tale with his hands and voice, until it all changed, and the dying man returned and opened his eyes because he realized that the story had been his all along, and it was not yet finished as he had first supposed. But those were most likely my own personal fancies, for I was both tired and astonished.  
  
A few times that night he would look over at me from the bedside where he was seated, and slowly shake his head; this signal I understood well enough. But even the ones he could not save seemed to relax under his touch, and their breathing would ease. I had begun by leading him down the center aisle in the north ward, but eventually I simply followed in his wake, quietly watching him and slipping the black cloths one after the other from the bedposts.  
  
Finally we arrived at the far end of the ward. The Elf looked out over the rows of beds and men.  
  
"And that is all, for the time?" he asked quietly. His tone held an edge of weariness—if indeed his people ever wearied, at all.   
  
I glanced around rather stupidly. "Yes…I suppose it is."  
  
"Then I will go and seek my brothers." He turned to me once more. "My thanks. It is no easy station you hold."  
  
I could think of nothing to say in reply to that, so I merely curtsied as deeply as I could manage. Perhaps it is only another of my time-blurred fancies, but I thought I caught an instant's bemused surprise in those rain-colored eyes. Lord Elladan smiled again, bowing gracefully, and then he turned and was gone.  
  
***  
  
Afterwards I walked unthinking to the northeast gardens and sat on the ground with my back against an old tree. I had not slept for nearly an entire day and night, but I felt light, as if my bones were hollow and my thoughts were spun of air. Several minutes passed before I realized I still had all the black cloth markers looped over my left arm. I slipped them from my sleeve and counted them, laid them on the ground beside me, and counted them again.   
  
He had done what we could not. I closed my eyes, and the evening air burned its sweetness into my chest with every breath I took.  
  
***  
  
"Hello?"  
  
I blinked. My back was ridged with soreness and my head felt like a metal weight.  
  
"I'm sorry! I didn't think you were sleeping."  
  
"I was not asleep," I protested, rubbing a hand over my face. Crouched before me on the grass was the young soldier. The first thing I noticed was that he had removed the dressings from his forehead.  
  
"All right," he smiled.  
  
"I wasn't."  
  
He settled himself beside me, sitting with his knees drawn up against his chest, a position that made him look very much like a small boy. "You must like gardens. Every time I meet you, you seem to be sitting in one."  
  
"Only twice." I stood up to shake the stiffness from my legs and to rub at my lower back. For some odd reason, I did not wish him to know quite how glad I was to see him. I had learned to guard my grief, and so perhaps it felt only natural to shield my joy, as well.  
  
"You  _must_  like gardens," he repeated, a gleam in his eye. "For you are a healer, and surely you love to care for all things, and watch them grow."  
  
"You must have some very strange notions about healers, sir," I replied with a lift of my brow. He laughed—that short, peculiar bark of a laugh that he seemed to carry with him. "And because you are a soldier, I suppose you like to cut things down, and that you love everything that is sharp and bloody?" He did not laugh at that.  
  
"I'm sorry," I began. "I should not have—"  
  
"It's all right. Your meaning is well taken—never judge a healer."  
  
It was quiet for a moment, and then I sat down before him. "And I will never judge a soldier. Agreed?"  
  
He nodded slowly. "Very well." He busied himself with his leather bag. "Have you heard?" he asked, rather offhandedly.  
  
"Heard about what?"  
  
"About everything. All of it."  
  
"Most likely not," I admitted.  
  
"Then I have a great many stories to tell you, if you would like to hear."  
  
"Very well; and I have some stories for you, as well." I was relieved that he did not seem angry with me.  
  
I leaned back against the tree, and he told me first of Mordor's great beasts and war-engines, and of the monstrous battering-ram that had broken down the gates, and of the ride of the Rohirrim, and the death of King Théoden by the hands of the Black Captain. Then he told me of the woman who had ridden to the battle as a man, and the strange little creature from the North whom she had brought with her.  
  
"They are in the Houses at this very moment, I think!" I put in. "Ioreth has told me about them."  
  
"Yes, they are here in the Sixth Circle." Last of all he told me of the army of pale specters who came to the aid of the West. I marveled silently as the fragments and rumors I had been hearing all day began to grow and take whole, solid form. He had some bread and cheese in his bag, and he shared that with me while I told him about the new healers who had come to our City, and about the Elf-lord and how he had aided those whom the rest of us had left for dying. All told, the young soldier possessed the greater number of stories, but I held the advantage of having seen with my own eyes the ones I had told, and so we agreed that we were more or less equal on tale-telling counts.  
  
"I can scarcely believe any of it," I admitted, "and yet all the same, it must be true."  
  
"Aye," he agreed. "It feels like being on the ridge of some mountain, but not yet at its peak. We can see naught of the great stone mass, save for the bit on which we stand at this very moment."  
  
"If it is like that, then we will not be able to see the entire mountain until we have come down altogether, and are very far away indeed." He nodded his concurrence, and we ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. The next time he spoke, his voice was low and hesitant.  
  
"That Lord Elladan, whom you told me about…do you suppose he might have helped Tar', as well?"  
  
"No." My reply was so quick that it hung in the air between us almost before he had finished his question. I should have allowed for a greater pause to show him that I had at least considered it. He bit his lip and stared at me again, that same sharp blue stare that had compelled me to lead him to the Warden the day before. But this time I matched his gaze. A "yes," or even a "perhaps" would have started him down a winding, poisonous path of might-have-beens, and I thought I should try to keep him from that road. Strange, the notion that a young girl should desire to protect a trained soldier, but the thought stood resolute in me. It must have shown on my face, as well, for at the last he did not question me further. He simply gave a slow nod and turned away to stare at some undetermined point in the distance.  
  
Then he stood up. "I need to return to work," he said quietly.  
  
"Me, too," I replied, finally realizing that I had lost track of time once more. We were perched on the perilous mountain ridge, after all, and there was still much to be done. "Thank you again."  
  
"The pleasure was mine," he smiled, and turned to go. As he did, something else occurred to me.  
  
"Wait," I said. "You'd better tell me your name. In case I see you again."  
  
He stopped and looked thoughtful, as if this were information that he did not impart to everyone. "Very well. But promise not to laugh."  
  
"Why would I laugh?"  
  
"Because it's 'Beren.'"  
  
"That's a fine name."  
  
He made a face, and once more he seemed very young. "My mother had romantic sensibilities. You should have heard all the teasing when I was a lad; you know how boys are." He sighed, then grinned again. "Tar' was the worst, actually. He never stopped, even when all the others outgrew it."  
  
"He was faithful, then."  
  
"Faithful," he laughed. "I suppose so." He reached down and took my hand and pressed it tightly. I thought that if I tried hard enough, I might memorize the pattern of calluses on his palm and the way in which he curled his fingertips inward. "Take care."  
  
"And you, as well."  
  
After he had left, I shook my head. "Beren," I said to myself, and went off to find the Warden again.  
  
***  
  
"Lord Faramir is very kind," Elloth was saying to me. "And," she added, leaning conspiratorially over the table, " _very_  handsome." She considered the cards in her graceful hand for a moment before making her play. "Your turn."  
  
I blinked at my own hand for less than a second before setting down my own card of choice. I was playing mechanically, without any thought; it hardly mattered, however, because Elloth invariably beat me at cards, anyway. She seemed to have an uncanny sense for the balance of the deck, for the numbers and the workings of things. That, and a near-flawless memory for small objects. The herbalists were supposed to keep a detailed tally of every quantity of every item that entered and exited the dispensary. Most staff members made marks as they worked, but Elloth wrote down all of her notes at the end of each of her shifts, as if she were recalling the lines of a favorite poem. She never made a mistake. I had attempted, on several occasions, to slip a flask or a bit of some obscure root from the shelf while her back was turned, to see if I could throw off her perfect count, but somehow these silent subtractions always seemed to end up in her notes, as well. It was rather unnerving, and more than a little irritating.  
  
"I was sent in to his rooms to give him his breakfast, today," she said, "only due to the absence of the maid-servants, of course. And when he thanked me, he also asked me my name, and my position, and how I had been faring here." She laid down another card. "Very courteous and soft-spoken—much more a gentleman or a scholar than a warrior, I should think."  
  
I nodded mutely. Elloth's speaking voice was really quite pleasant, and when I stepped back from my mind and let the words blend into one another like meaningless sounds, her continuous talk was actually somewhat soothing.  
  
It was my turn again: spades. Today a number of us had gone down to the lower circles and seen where the stone had been wrecked and crushed like bread crumbs. There were corpses everywhere, men and orcs both, tangled on the ground. We could give no white shrouds to these ones; the only courtesy we could grant our fallen soldiers was not to burn them in the same fire as their enemies.  
  
"…it has been said that the Steward always favored his elder son over his younger, but I cannot see how that could be, myself…"  
  
"Check them for letters," one of the captains on the Second Circle said. Some of them had small rolls of paper tucked in the folds of their clothing: In the event of my death. The bodies were bloated from heat and time, their skins stretched taut in places. The air was full of smoke, and the smell was unbearable.  
  
When I was a little girl I had sometimes gone down with my mother to the big, crowded, noisy market on this level. I always clutched her hand tightly because I was terrified of being lost. Today the only corner I could recognize was the place where the flower seller's stand had been; now there was the body of a man. He was on his back, eyes open and staring at the sky.  
  
Elloth made her final play, and won. She did not smile, but took it all as a matter of course.  
  
"Let me see your hand." I showed her my cards. "You were very close," she conceded. "Next time pay more attention to diamonds."  
  
A group of surgeons had been sent down to assess the conditions of those survivors who could not be moved all the way up to the Houses. Valacar glanced over at me as I coughed convulsively into a handkerchief I was carrying. I had been holding it over my nose and mouth, but it was not doing me any good, and later I would throw it away.  
  
"Once," he said quietly, "when I was a boy, there was a great storm. And in the morning, after the sea had rolled back again, there was a great mass of wreckage on the shore, snarled and twisted into itself."  
  
I coughed again. My eyes were watering from the smoke and the smell. "Were there bodies, too?"  
  
"No. But dead things; splintered wood and snaking ropes of seaweed. This all reminds me of that, somehow." He glanced at me again and shook his head quickly. "Well, I'm sorry. You didn't need to hear that, so I don't know why I told you. Here." He handed me another handkerchief and walked away. It was not until much later that I realized I had forgotten to ask him about Lord Aradîr.  
  
For the following shift, Elloth was sent down to the Second Circle, and I remained in the Houses. When she returned, she did not ask to play cards again.  
  
***  
  
The Rohirrim fascinated me; I had never seen so many fair-haired men in one place before. They looked strong and loose-limbed when they moved, as if they were always making ready to spring astride their mounts, for Ioreth had told me that they practically lived in the saddle. At first I was timid around them, because for some reason I had always been terrified of horses, and these warriors seemed to live and breathe the beasts. But later I liked to speak with the men from the Mark whenever I got the chance; their speech had a lovely slow lilt to it, as if their voices themselves were rolling forwards over the distant plains of their country. Even the ones who were laid low with wounds, their backs propped against pillows, maintained a lift to their chins that was proud but not haughty. Mostly they were very polite, and never glanced away from you when you spoke to them.  
  
So it was that the Warden found me after the card game, listening to a long-haired horseman while I changed the bandage on his leg. He had a daughter about my age, he was telling me, and I reminded him of her. Her hair was lighter than mine, and she was a fair bit taller than I was, and not quite so slender (with no offense meant to me, of course—I couldn't help it). But all the same, I reminded him of her. Perhaps something about the eyes…  
  
Smiling, the Warden stood by the head of the man's bed and asked how he was faring, and then he moved over towards me and spoke very softly.  
  
"When you finish with this man, you will go and speak to Lord Aradîr in his offices." I tied off another section of bandage and turned round to look at the Warden; the expression on his face did not invite me to ask any questions. "He's asked for you. That is all," he said. It seemed to me to be the sort of voice that mothers revert to when small children ask them where it is that infants come from.  
  
***  
  
I went to wash my hands and face and put on a clean smock, tracing the possibilities in my mind. The soldier who had propositioned me the night before was sitting on the edge of one of the beds in the south ward. His eyes went from his carving-knife to me, but I made a point of not looking at him as I passed. As I went by one of the entryways to the surgery corridor, I saw Valacar—this was odd, because he usually worked in the rooms to the center, not on the south end.  
  
"Valacar," I said, "I've been called out to speak to—"  
  
"Aradîr?" he finished for me.   
  
I nodded. "And why might that be?"  
  
Valacar sighed. He was looking more tired than usual, standing there in his grey coat. He should not wear that color, I thought—all of our surgeons wore grey, but on some men it looked like mourning. He glanced around once, quickly, and then moved closer to me and lowered his voice.  
  
"You've done nothing wrong," he said, "but I may have made a mistake."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"There are laws," he said, "concerning the taking of lives under various circumstances." One of the possibilities in my mind coiled itself up tightly as I remembered the dying soldier on Valacar's bench, the knife on the whetstone. "And some men tend to differ in the…interpretations of these laws. You should just protect yourself, if it comes to that."  
  
"From  _who_?" I asked. "Lord Aradîr?"  
  
Valacar stepped back. "He's a powerful man," he remarked mildly, as if he were commenting on an excess of salt in his soup or a small cloud over the horizon. "I'm very sorry for this," he said, growing grave once more. "We'll talk later." He turned to go. "I'll not keep you any longer."  
  
"Wait!" Bits of theories and recollections were spinning between my ears, but for some reason the one that seemed to matter least was the one that leapt to my throat at that moment. He looked back at me. His eyes were a shade lighter than his tunic.  
  
"Earlier today," I began, "you said you had seen a wreck on the shore, when you were a boy. Where was that wreck?"  
  
His careful surgeon's hands seemed to relax at his sides, momentarily. "That was in Dol Amroth." His voice was no longer urgent, but distant. "Where I grew up. My father sent me to the City to do the second part of my apprenticeship."  
  
"Really?" I paused to take in this fact. "I never knew that. I had always assumed that you were one of us—that you were from Minas Tirith, I mean. Of course you're one of us," I groped awkwardly to correct myself. Valacar just gave a faint smile at that.  
  
"It's the accent, I suppose," I explained. "I've never heard you speak with a coastal accent."  
  
"I used to," he shrugged. "Some things are easy to unlearn."  
  
I should tell Beren about the unlearning the next time I saw him, I thought as I left the Houses and stepped out on to the flagstones of the Sixth Circle. He seemed like he would be the type of person to appreciate it. The air was warm with sunlight and smoke, but my hands were cold.


	6. Healer's Canon

When I reached the entryway of the building which housed Lord Aradîr’s offices, I gave my name to the dark-garbed attendant who was standing watch. He nodded once, briskly, and led me through the doors and then down a wide windowless corridor. The hall was busy, and full of echoing footfalls. The men we passed on the way gave me brief curious glances: houses of state and bureaucracy are not places for women. We came to Aradîr’s rooms, and the attendant went in before me and announced my arrival, bowing.

The man behind the desk in the office looked up and smiled, his keen light-colored eyes glancing up at me. I had seen Lord Aradîr several times before, on the occasions when he came to visit the Houses, but had seldom been in such close quarters with him, nor had he ever spoken to me directly. He had a pleasant youthful face; he had his hands out in front of him to reposition an inkwell, and I could see that the only rings he wore on his fingers were a pair of plain, slender bands; wedding rings, no doubt. Quite different from some other noblemen I had seen, whose fingers were loaded with heavy gold and silver crests and seals, announcing their station and their lineage.

“My lord,” I said, dropping a curtsey.

“Good afternoon, my good lady.” His voice was quiet and measured. He dismissed the attendant with a nod.

“Please, sit,” he said, motioning to the single chair that stood before the desk. He did not look at me as I settled down, but kept his eyes and hands busy with the papers in front of him. I glanced about the room, which was large and airy and well-furnished; the position of Master of the Houses of Healing was a prestigious one, my mother had told me. Lord Aradîr’s chair was placed so that he was seated with his back to the office’s large windows that looked out on a courtyard. The top of his desk was covered in neat stacks of parchment—affairs of state must still be accounted for in these dire times, I imagined; the City must still be maintained and ordered. Now that I am older, I sometimes think of that office and wonder how our War must have looked in the corridors of the Sixth Circle during those days, with battles and deaths and reprieves all turned to the flatness of paper and ink.

“And how do you fare?” he asked me, still seemingly preoccupied with his paperwork.

“Well enough, my lord.”

He smiled again. “That is what some of my colleagues might call a ‘diplomatic response.’”

I was not sure whether or not that was a compliment.

“I assume you are somewhat weary with your labors, at this hour?” he went on.

“Yes, somewhat, sir. As is everyone.”

“That is more than understandable. And you need always not be so diplomatic with me, though an admirable inclination it is, all the same.”

“Yes, my lord.”

His eyes were still not upon me, so I took the opportunity to continue my survey of the room. The wall to my left was taken up by a high bookshelf, filled end to end with volumes. Some of the neat spines were the full width of a man’s palm, and others were slender as a child’s finger; I was too anxious to notice a great deal more about them.

“You are fond of books?” Lord Aradîr was looking at me, now.

“Yes, my lord,” I replied, turning back towards him. It was true; I had always enjoyed books. I was not particularly adept at reading, and found it a slow and frustrating affair, but I loved the smell of the leather bindings and the dry rustle of pages beneath my fingers on the scarce occasions when I had a book on hand. I admired the neat contrast between black ink and white-yellow paper, and the elegant rows and lines that the words made.

“That is well,” he nodded approvingly. He laid the papers on his desk and clasped his hands on top of them. “You should know the Warden speaks highly of you. He has told me that you are a very intelligent girl, very diligent…and very obedient.”

“That is…good to know, my lord,” I replied. In my lap, my hands had begun to knot themselves into the folds of my smock. 

“And, of course, that you are no poor healer,” he went on. “You are like your mother in that respect.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He paused, then glanced down at his papers once more. “A pity for us all that she did not remain in the City, as well,” he remarked softly.

“She would have stayed behind, my lord, had she not my brother and my cousin to care for.”

“They must be young indeed, then.”

“My brother is ten years old, sir, old enough to have stayed on as a message-lad if he wished. But my cousin is only seven, and they are closer to one another than any two brothers, and would not be separated. So both boys went to the coast.” _To my mother’s great relief_ , I added silently. I wondered how they fared now; farther from peril than we were, no doubt, but also farther from home.

“‘Twas good of her to spare one of her children, then.”

I nodded stupidly; I could not tell whether he meant that she had spared her daughter for the service of the City, or that she had spared her son from certain death.

I remembered back to only two weeks before, though it seemed like years ago. Two weeks before, when Minas Tirith was bleeding itself out in rivers of people, all the maidens and children and the old ones who were headed for safer ground. When the Houses of Healing were full of talk about who would go and who would remain, especially after it was announced that the women might stay, too, if they so chose.

I would remain and aid my City, I had decided. Not because I had truly desired to stay, but because somehow I knew it might feel worse to leave. When I told my mother, there was some childish part of me that wanted her to fight me, that wished she would beg me to come with her, so that perhaps I might even be convinced to do so. But of course she did not beg me; I was no longer a little girl, after all, and could do as I pleased. She had nodded and told me she was proud of me. She had told me to be brave. Later she kissed me goodbye and let me go, and now I did not know what I would have done had the choice been mine all over again.

“And your father? Defending Gondor, undoubtedly?” Aradîr turned over a sheet of paper, which made a soft flicking noise. I swallowed. 

“Dead, my lord. Nine years ago.”

“I am sorry.”

“There is no need, sir.”

Aradîr regarded me for a long moment, then nodded briskly. I wondered what he had summoned me here for; my body refused to relax in the chair. I fully expected that at any moment I should be accused, threatened, sentenced.

“As I recall, you work mainly in the south ward.”

“North and south, my lord.”

“That is well,” he said. “And is there ever need for you in the surgery corridor?”

_Ah, so here it is…_

“Yes, my lord. On occasion.”

“I see. And are there any surgeons who favor your work especially?”

“No, my lord. Not especially.”

He made a soft noise of assent in his throat and looked down at his papers once more. I tried to keep still; I felt as though I had done something wrong. _Nothing at all_ , I thought to myself. _You have done no wrong. Not yet, at the very least…_ I remembered the man lying in Valacar’s surgery-room that day, and repressed a shudder at the nearness of the memory as it welled up in my throat.

“So you have aided many of them?”

“A few, sir.”

“Valacar?” Lord Aradîr’s tone was marvelously casual, as if this were merely the first surgeon’s name he had plucked from the air, and nothing more.

“Yes…once or twice, my lord.”

“He asked for you?”

I remembered Valacar’s words: _Just protect yourself, if it comes to that._ But if Aradîr did not know _something_ , he would not be asking me such pointed questions…

“His apprentice was ill, my lord. Valacar merely needed a second pair of hands for the day.”

“And does Valacar conduct himself well?”

“I—I do not understand, my lord.”

“He has never treated you in any way that was…untoward, has he?”

It was not an invalid question: some of the surgeons, steady as they were with their scalpels, were known to be a bit careless with their hands, especially where the young women of the Houses were concerned. Valacar, however, had never been one of these, and I found myself bridling at the very suggestion.

“Never, sir.”

“A perfect gentleman, I suppose?” For the first time in our conversation, I detected an edge creep into Aradîr’s voice. I half-expected to see his mouth curled into an elegant smirk; it was not, of course.

“Yes, my lord,” I truthfully replied.

“That is well. And he has asked for you?” Aradîr’s tone was still light, as if this were some small misapprehension that he needed my assistance in sorting out. But he would not have called a little healer-girl all the way to his offices for the correction of a simple misapprehension, would he?

“Yes, my lord. He asked for me.”

He nodded and slowly pulled one of the papers from the stack, holding it up before him in two hands so that I could not see the markings on it.

“Know that I doubt not your skill, good lady, nor do I doubt the skills of _any_ of those in our Houses. But you are aware, are you not, that for a woman to attend at surgery is in direct violation of the Healer’s Canon?”

Had I not been so startled, I might have laughed. “The _Canon_? My lord, those laws were written hundreds of years ere our time; they—"

“As were many of our laws, good lady.” Aradîr’s voice was soft and even. “And yet that is no less of a reason to cleave to them.”

“But—” I began, but then thought better of it. _But we all break the Canon, now and again—healers, herbalists, surgeons and Warden_ , I was about to say. And it was the truth. Everyone knew it. The Canon was a set of old and elegant rules, but Gondor had been at war for years; there were edges that had to be trimmed away, formalities that must be forgone, in times such as these. We looked upon the Canon as more of a symbol of our history than anything else. Our Warden knew this, for he was there with us every day, walking the aisles between the sickbeds. We all knew that there were things he chose not to see, mild transgressions on which he did not have time to remark; the times before the poppy rationing, for instance, in which the healers might administer a slight excess of the drug to a painfully dying soldier, so that he could drift off to sleep more easily, though he might not wake up again. It was one of the many small truths of the Houses that went unspoken, but stood all the same.

Aradîr gave a lift of his brow at my aborted objection before going on. “You were made to recite the Canon upon your induction as an apprentice, were you not?”

“Yes, my lord. All of us were.”

“Recall you the passage concerning women in the Houses?”

I closed my eyes and remembered the hours I had spent with my mother as she helped me to memorize the Canon in full; it was a long collection of laws, but we were all made to learn it perfectly so that we could speak it for that one occasion. In the weeks before each yearly induction, it is not uncommon to hear the young boys and girls murmuring snatches of passages under their breath as they go about their errands. Laeron had had a terribly hard time learning his Canon, I remembered; Elloth, of course, had had its entirety committed to her memory from nearly her first hearing, and had not been shy about volunteering this fact whenever the subject arose.

“ _And of those women who tend to the wounded and the infirm_ …” I began slowly, the words coming back to me after these intervening years. “… _just as they shall not wield sword in war, neither shall they take a blade to the bodies of those who lie in their care, for their work shall be for the giving of life, and not for the wounding_.” 

I stopped and opened my eyes. Aradîr was staring at me with a faint smile on his face.

“We all carry knives,” I protested. “All of us, my lord. ‘Twould be near impossible to treat the battle-wounds without such things, even for the women.”

“When you are making your rounds on the _wards_ , yes?”

“Yes.”

The expression on my face must have been concerned, indeed, for Aradîr gave a gentle laugh. “Be not so troubled, good healer. I am not blind to the necessities you face, though I am…how do your old women say, ‘Neither healer nor…’”

“Neither healer nor surgeon, my lord,” I murmured. 

He smiled. “Yes, that is the old adage, I am told. Tell me, though…recall you the very next part of the Canon?”

I traced back over the words in my mind. “ _…for their work shall be for the giving of life, and not for the wounding. They will withdraw_ …” I went on. “ _They will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work._ ”

“And so there are reasons that women may not become _surgeons_ , you see.”

“But sir, I was not—”

He put up a hand to stop me. “Please forgive me. It is not my intent to make you run through your lessons like a school-child, nor is it my intent to dictate how you should go about doing your work.”

 _Then what_ is _your intent?_ I thought.

“Understand that you have done nothing wrong,” he continued. “I merely wish to make you realize that some of your superiors…some of your _surgeons_ …might draw you into a position in which you are forced to go against our laws, even if it seems to be in the best interests of your patients.” The wooden legs of his chair scraped the floor as he pushed back from his desk to stand and turn around and gaze out the window, arms crossed over his chest. “I have served this City as a statesman for many years, and one of the things I have learned is that breaches of…small rules can soon lead to violations of larger ones, and larger ones still.” He turned around and looked at me once more. “And you must know, as well, that to be complicit to any such crimes renders one just as much at fault as if one had carried out the crime oneself. Perhaps even more so.”

“Yes, my lord.” In my lap, my palms were cold with sweat.

Lord Aradîr crossed over to where I sat, and, to my surprise, dropped to a crouch beside my chair so that our eyes were on the same level.

“You are not an ignorant girl,” he whispered. “You do not seem so to me, nor are ignorant men and women permitted to become healers and surgeons. So there is no way you cannot see that Gondor is dying. That Minas Tirith is dying. And that it has been so for years, that it began before you were born.”

My throat went dry.

“But even in our death we are strong,” he went on. He was so close that I could feel his breath on the skin of my neck. “And that is because we have an order of things. We have the codes and the decrees of our Stewards and even of our Kings, that we may hold them and cleave to them as flesh cleaves to bone. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“So you understand that I…that _we_ must not see this City fall into lawlessness, even in its ending. That we must not turn to such weakness, even in these final moments.”

“Yes, my lord,” I replied, my own voice barely above a whisper. Lord Aradîr stood up once more. I had to tilt my chin up in order to look at him.

“That is well. And if ever you should observe that _anyone_ in the Houses is engaging in any…larger breaches of Canon, you would inform the Warden, would you not?”

“I would, sir.”

He went and sat behind the desk once more, and returned once more to the seemingly perpetual shuffling and re-shuffling of his papers. Suddenly my anxiety about this man’s words were drowned in a surge of contempt. His hands were soft and dry, and he was never with us; he was not in the wards, wading through a sea of beds and bodies. He was not there with us, plunging his fingers into wound after wound until all thought disappeared; and so he could not make any judgments about what we might or might not do. He had no right to take me from the Houses, even if it were for less than an hour, to ask me questions that led nowhere and to make me repeat a Canon he might have just as easily looked up in one of his books. It was all time I might have spent helping the wounded men, or at the very least, moments that I might have spent curled up in a dead sleep in some dark room to the side.

“You have a good memory,” he was saying to me.

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Might you indulge me once more before I let you go? Tell me what the very beginning of the Healer’s Canon says.”

I nodded again, and tried to recall the first words.

“ _I swear by the Valar and by all who preceded me in this craft that I will use this learning for the benefit of the wounded and the infirm. I will keep them from injustice and above all do them no harm._ ”

“Please, go on.”

“ _I will neither administer a deadly drug to anyone who asks for it, nor take measures to end a life before that time is fully due, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. In purity and devotion I will guard my life and my art._ ”

“You may stop there.” Lord Aradîr was smiling once more. “Many thanks for your time, my good lady. You are dismissed.”

***

When I came back through the gardens, the soldier with the foot wound and the carving-knife was sitting against the wall once more.

“Hello, little one. Off to do more knife-work?”

I passed by without answering, my shoes crushing the soft grass.

“Well, then. Never can tell what pleases a lady, now can you?” he grinned.

I stopped and looked him in the eye.

“You don’t frighten me,” I said, and walked away swiftly, willing myself deaf to whatever it was he said next.

***

In the south ward, Fíriel was folding the clean towels. I sat beside her and began to help. After three towels, I stopped and leaned my head on her shoulder and closed my eyes.

Fíriel finished folding the towel that was in her hands, then put her arm around me.

“Is anything wrong?”

I could feel the warmth through the cloth of her dress; she still smelled of chamomile. “I don’t know.”

“Will you tell me when you do?”

I nodded.

“All right,” she said. She gave me a light kiss on the forehead. I rested there for a few moments more, and then I sat up again and we both went back to work.


	7. Uneasy Peace

When we had finished with the towels, Fíriel placed a basket’s worth in my arms and told me to bring them to the south ward and the surgery corridor, and that after that I should go and rest.

The south ward was full, as it had been for the past several days, the Gondorian soldiers and the Rohirric cavalrymen perched and propped on the low, narrow beds. After the battle, the uninjured men would come to visit their friends. They trailed in and out of the wards between their shifts at feeding the funeral fires, and at all the other duties that had to be attended to in our half-crumbled City. The Houses were by far some of the cleanest places left in Minas Tirith, and there were women there, and the air within them was not nearly so foul as the air without. Therefore certain corners of the south ward had become unofficial gathering places for some of the companies. It was not unusual to pass loose clusters of soldiers, conversing and sharing their bread and meat, occasionally passing around a small flask. I liked the sound their talk made within the walls, their low voices mingling together like the constant noise of a fountain or a running stream.

I counted out stacks of towels to place on the small, squat wooden tables that stood among the beds at intervals. I exchanged the occasional greeting with this Rider or that Guardsman, for all of the healers had made the acquaintance of a great many men over this past week.

“Thank you, Miss,” a man in ranger’s garb said. His face was kindly and weather-worn.

“You’re most welcome…Mablung, is it?”

“Aye. You see, Damrod?” He put a gentle elbow to the ribs of his friend, who was sitting beside him. “She remembers me.”

“’Tis most likely because you’re the greatest oaf she’s ever met,” said Damrod, without looking up.

* * *

Before, I had never imagined that I could envy a soldier, but now at times I would watch them together like this and feel a strange longing. There was something about the way they spoke with one another, their movements as they clapped their friends on the back or clasped hands in salutation. Even the ones who would often quarrel, the ones who were not the fastest of friends within their unit, still seemed to carry that sort of easy, knowing closeness between them. I had always loved to sit and talk with the other girls in the Houses when we had time to spare, but it did not seem the same; I decided there must be a different sort of blessing conferred to those who had drawn and shed blood on the same field.

I was thinking of this when I came to the surgery corridor. I set a few towels outside of each room. When I came to the last in the row, I knocked on the door.

Valacar opened it and looked at me, one hand on the wooden frame. “Well, come in,” he said.

I stepped inside and he looked quickly around before shutting the door behind me. The small room looked as it always did when Valacar was not at work on a patient; it was clean and orderly, all the edges of the tables squared to one another.

“I brought you some towels.”

“As I can see. Thank you.”

I gave the basket a small toss upwards, then caught it.

“But now they’ve all come unfolded.” I sat down on a chair against the wall and placed the basket in front of me. “So I need to make them tidy again.”

He stared at me for a moment. The first few ties at the neck of his coat had come undone. He snorted, then smiled. “As you wish.” 

I pulled out one of the white cloth squares and put it into my lap. It was a few minutes before I decided what I should say. For his part, Valacar was silent as well. He leaned against the opposite wall, arms folded over his chest.

“I’m not entirely sure what he wanted,” I finally said. I remembered the endless stacks of papers, the books against the wall of the office, Aradîr’s low whisper in my ear. “He was not forward with me. He wished to know if I had done any work in the surgery corridor, if I had ever aided you. And he said that it went against Canon for a woman to do surgery work.”

Valacar raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Though I don’t think he is angry with me for that.”

“No, I doubt he would be, in truth.”

“And he kept going on about the Canon, and all of the laws. He said that the smaller violations could lead to the larger. I don’t understand why he did not just ask me about…if he wanted, I mean…” I trailed off.

“And what do you think?” Valacar asked softly.

“Of what?”

“Do you think that it was the right thing for me to do?”

I looked down and ran my hands over the coarse cloth in my lap. I liked neither the question, nor the way in which he had asked it.

“Of course it was,” I said quickly. I had never spoken of it with anyone—I had only played timidly about its edges. “It had to be. I—I mean, I saw him. I saw that man.” I threw a glance towards the high surgery table. “’Tis a cursed thing, to let a man linger in such pain, is it not? Especially when his end is already certain.” I closed my eyes. “I didn’t like it,” I continued, and my voice rose slightly. “I hated it. It made me ill to think of it, even after everything else. But it had to be done.” I opened my eyes to look at Valacar. “It needed to be done, did it not?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”

My stomach turned. 

“What do you mean? You cannot do such a thing and not be sure of it.” Valacar was one of our best surgeons; he had always seemed to know what to do. When the surgeons stood in the corridor to argue or debate some matter, they always heeded his words, even when his voice was the quietest. There was no sense in him asking me such a thing. I pulled the towel from my lap, tossed it back into the basket.

“And besides that,” I went on, my tone softer now, “what can it mean, one more body? When there are yet so many lying on the field?”

“I suppose it means that one body carries the same weight as any other, and that we cannot always find a gentle way around things, and that those in our place must not make presumptions.”

“What are you saying, then? What will you do?”

“I do not know. It was wrong of me to undertake such a thing while you were aiding at the surgery. It was thoughtless, and I wish no ill to come to you for it.”

“’Twas but a brief talk I was called for, in the end.” I paused, knotting and twisting my fingers into the loose folds of my smock. “But I still do not understand, Valacar; how could Lord Aradîr know of all this? It was during the fighting, was it not? Everyone was hard at work—and you were behind a closed door. And I—” I stopped in a panic of memory. Then I took a deep breath. “No. I said nothing,” I finished, fairly sure of myself.

“But I sent you for the herbs.”

“Oh.” And then I remembered: Elloth’s perfect records. Was it the job of the herbalists to record denials as well, now that the rationing was underway? “And I asked for them in your name.”

Valacar nodded. “And soon after there was a corpse borne away from my part of the corridor.”

A pause. 

“But I still do not understand. Who would watch those things so well, especially when there is a battle at our doorstep?”

Valacar moved away from the wall and leaned over the table that stood between us, resting his weight on his elbows. “You seem like a good girl. You pay little heed to wagging tongues, I suppose?”

“Well… I…” The truth of the matter was that I enjoyed a good morsel of harmless gossip as much as any young lady, and there were often plenty to be had in the close space of the Houses. The reason that I was not of ill repute in this sense was that I did not simper and giggle like many of the other girls.

Valacar gave a weary smile. “That is well. I would have you know that grown men partake in their fair share of rumor as well.”

Suddenly I recalled the barest shred of something—a few words, perhaps, that I had overheard nearly one year ago.

“You would be the next Warden, would you not?”

He nodded. “There has been talk, although I am not the only one under such consideration.” He smiled again. “And our own Warden is yet quite hale, and I do not know if I should even like to inherit his position if ever it comes to that. I am no great lover of bureaucracy.” His smile faded as he went on. “Such a thing does seem to mean that some men can nonetheless be watched more closely than others. That some cases can be handled less forwardly than others.”

“Even in times of war?”

“Even in times of war. Perhaps even more than in the uneasy peace in which the City has dwelt for all these years.”

“And what would become of you, Valacar? If…”

“Most likely I would be removed from the Houses. And perhaps there would be other consequences brought to bear; the ones for the taking of a life, outside of war.”

I shook my head. “No.”

His face softened. “But it may not come to that. I do not wish you to trouble yourself with this.”

“I will, whether you wish it or not.”

He crossed to the other side of the table to stand directly before me. “Take heart at this, then: the tides have turned, and Ioreth tells me that the King has come back to us.”

I stared at him.

“’Tis often true that Ioreth prates more than is becoming,” he went on, “but never in my memory has she spoken false.”

“And what thinks the Lord Denethor of this?” I asked when my voice had returned.

It was his turn to stare. 

“You do not know, then?”

“What?”

“The Steward is dead. There was a fire.”

I bent my head and took a slow breath. Surely that could not be.

“The Lord Faramir will be Steward, now,” Valacar continued. “And by all accounts he is a wise man.”

“And a just man, as well?”

“Aye. A fair man.”

“Then that is well, I suppose,” I said, and any strength that was in my voice had long fled. I glanced up at Valacar once more. He looked tired and calm, as he always did. I could not see how he could be so serene. Before, speaking with him had never failed to settle my mind, if only just a little; now, our talk had hopelessly roiled my thoughts.

“Valacar, Laeron wants to go and fight!” I blurted suddenly. The memory of the apprentice in the kitchens had sprung to my mind unbidden.

“I know,” Valacar sighed. “I believe that many of the young men in the Houses had such a desire. It was well for us all that the battle was ended before any had fully resolved to go.”

“’Twould be folly.”

“It might well be, but I can understand why Laeron and the others would wish to go. Though Laeron’s parents sent him to be apprenticed to the Houses so that they would not have to send their son to war.”

“And much good it did him. We have all been sent to war, in the end.” I remembered Aradîr’s words. _‘Twas good of her to spare one of her children, then._

“We chose to stay, did we not?”

“Aye, that is true,” I conceded. I paused once more, and then resumed: “And he’s in love with Elloth, Valacar!”

“Oh.” He considered this new revelation for a moment. “And is there anything you would like me to do about that?”

“I don’t know, it’s just—it’s _Elloth_!”

“Well, she is very pretty.” He must have noted the look on my face, for he quickly added, “You’re very pretty, too, of course.” He paused, and stared at me. “ _You_ don’t fancy him, do you?”

“ _What?_ Laeron? Valar, no.”

“Well, then. You would do well not to add to your own troubles, my good lady.”

I nodded quickly, embarrassed. Even at the end of it all I was still a rather silly girl, it seemed. “I should be going.”

“One last thing: you should not tell anyone of the manner of the lord Steward’s death. The Warden says that the news must not reach the lord Faramir’s ears at the present time.”

“Why not?”

“I assume it is because he has been gravely ill, and because he has more than enough to fill his thoughts in these days, even without word of his father’s demise.”

“I’ll not tell anyone.”

“I suppose you must keep secrets well enough—when it matters.”

“I do.”

Valacar nodded, satisfied. “You seem so. Quiet girls usually do. I believe I could tell that the first time I saw you, in fact.”

“And when was that?”

“It must have been…nigh on twenty years ago, I suppose.”

I folded my arms. “Don’t tease me, Valacar. I would have been naught but a babe.”

“So you were. I had just arrived in the City for my surgical apprenticeship, and your mother came with you to visit the others in the Houses. I remember she said that you were a very good and sweet child, though you did not smile as much as you might have. You sat in her arms very quietly and took in everything around you. I fancied that you looked like a wise little owl.”

“That was a long time ago. Why would you recall a thing like that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do we remember some things and forget others?”

“A wise little owl,” I repeated. “That is good to know, I suppose.”

He smiled. “I am glad of it.”

I stood up and made ready to leave. “Goodbye, Valacar. And thank you.”

“Thanks to you, as well,” he replied. “And do try to be at ease with this, if you can. You young ones must keep the hope for us all.” He shut the door behind me and I left, clutching the empty basket.

* * *

As I moved down the corridor that led to a wing of private rooms, the men seated with their backs against the wall threw me several longing looks. Or rather, they threw longing looks at the tray of food I was balancing in both hands. It was a good meal, to be sure; not an extravagant repast, but certainly much better than the plain bread and tough dried meat on which most of the men had been living for the past few weeks. As soon as the sons and daughters of nobles had come to the Houses, stuffed roasted game hen, good cheese, cured olives, and even a few delicately-crusted pastries had miraculously appeared in the kitchens.

“How nice of her, boys! She’s brought us a proper supper.”

“’Tis very sweet of you, missy, to remember the lowly warriors.”

“This,” I said, without breaking my stride, “is for the Lady Éowyn.” 

A chorus of groans and mock exhortations went up. It _did_ smell good.

“Ah, too good for the likes of us, I see!”

“Aye…playing lady’s-maid to the Wraithbane, she is.”

Lady’s-maid, indeed, I thought.

“You will take the Lady her midday meal, and you will sit with her and wait on her until she is finished or dismisses you,” the Warden had said to me earlier. I immediately opened my mouth to protest: I was a healer, after all, and not a maidservant—this was a distinction that the girls of the Houses took quite seriously. But the Warden did not look as though he was in any mood to debate this matter, and besides that, I realized that I was intrigued at the prospect of finally seeing the storied woman up close. So I had swallowed my objections and gone to fetch the food.

Now I tapped at the door with the toe of my shoe. The voice from within bade me enter, and I shouldered the door open and went inside.

“My lady,” I said, and dropped a curtsey.

The tales that had been going around the Houses were numerous, and some were more fanciful than others. So perhaps I had expected to see some wild-woman with beads and feathers woven through straw-colored hair; or perhaps I fancied I would see some dark-eyed lady of death, swathed in robes of crimson and black.

I saw neither, however. The woman by the window stood slender and tall in a tidy white gown. Her fair hair hung loose down her back, shining dully in the muted slats of light that streamed through the glass. When she turned around I saw that her face was pale, and very, very pretty. I was reminded for a moment of the statue of the solemn young maiden I had seen in the gardens.

I carefully set the tray on the small table beside the bed. The fine covers looked barely disturbed. I cleared my throat nervously.

“With all respect, my lady, the Warden has said that you are to be abed as much as possible,” I ventured.

She nodded slowly, but did not move. “I doubt not that that is what he said.” Her accent was not so pronounced as those of many of the other Rohirrim, but there was yet a low, insistent thread of it running through her voice. No matter what else each of the different tales had said, they had all agreed that she was formidable.

I looked at her, and then I looked at the bed and at the food. I lifted the tray from the small bedside stand and placed it upon the regular table towards the center of the room. I pulled out the chair.

She nodded to me. “Thank you.”

* * *

Even today, people still ask me now and then what it was like to attend to the Lady of Rohan, and so soon after the Battle of the Pelennor. I always begin by telling them that she was a very poor eater in those days, and they swiftly lose interest.

It was true, nonetheless: I would watch her as she picked at her meals in disinterested silence, and marveled at how one with such a bad appetite could possibly have had the strength to ride to battle, let alone perform any great deeds upon arrival there. And then in all fairness I would remember that there had been many hours in these past days in which my own stomach had been empty, and yet I would sooner have died than made myself take a bite of food. In those hours it would be all torn skin, cracked bones, the warm iron flavor of blood.

I like to think that we were perhaps companionable. I was sent to her room with her meals many times over the next several days; while I was certain that while she had not requested my return, at the very least she did not find me objectionable. I believe that we were all little more than shadows to her at that time. She did not speak to me much, nor I to her. Sometimes she would ask me a question about the Houses or the City, and I would reply as best I could. Though she was nothing if not mirthless, she still seemed to possess an odd sort of humor, which occasionally bared itself in sharp, dry splinters.

Once she asked me if there were a great many ladies working here.

There were a fair few, I replied. Though not so many as before the Siege.

“I suppose I have met several of them,” she said. Then there was a long pause. “You do not say a great deal,” she told me.

“I could speak more, if my lady wishes.”

She gazed out the window for a moment before looking back at me. “’Twas a compliment.”

* * *

On that first day with Éowyn, I returned the supper tray to the kitchens and walked back through the north ward. Beren was standing near a corner, talking to two other soldiers who wore the same dark livery as he did. Their faces were quite different from one another, save that they shared that peculiar sternness of countenance that seemed to attach itself to all of our menfolk from the age of fifteen or so; and yet at the same time they seemed to me as alike as three brothers. Beren saw me staring at him, and I looked away reflexively.

But a moment later he was at my side. “Hello again,” he said.

“Hello. Are those your friends?”

“Aye.”

“And how do they fare?”

“Well enough, I think. ‘Tis good of you to ask.”

“It is my business to ask.” I inclined my head slightly to one side. He watched me with raised eyebrows.

“Then I will not praise you so if ‘tis merely your job. After all,” he went on lightly, “my uncle oft says that to feed a woman too much praise is like feeding a mare too many oats—it makes her spoiled and useless, you see.” He smiled at me. I opened my mouth, but then he continued: “I think that you should take a walk with me.”

“Why don’t you find a mare? Perhaps she would be better company for you.”

It took him a moment to recover. “I looked for one,” he finally said, smiling once more, “but the stables were empty.”

“Well, that’s a terrible pity. She would have found your conversation far more charming.”

He laughed, put his hands up to signal a truce. “Very well, then. You need not forgive me if you do not wish to. But you should come and take a walk with me.”

I considered him for a moment, then nodded curtly. “A short one.”

“Aye, and not in the gardens, since you insist you dislike them so.”

“I never said that.”

“Of course not.”

We left the Houses and walked slowly round the Sixth Circle. I kept my arms folded across my chest. Our dragging feet were in marked contrast to the men and women who moved about briskly on some piece of business or other. We stayed close to the inside edge of the Circle, but here and there my gaze was drawn briefly outward and downward and a glimpse of the ruined Pelennor filled the corner of my eye. Perhaps it had been a mistake to go out, I thought, for the lightness of our previous talk seemed to drain from us with each step.

“May I ask you something, Beren?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever killed a man?”

He nodded, and his face was blank. “Aye, some. I once kept a sure count of all the foes I had felled, but I no longer care to do so. To slay a man is far more loathsome than slaying orcs, I think, but such was the way of the battles.” He paused and looked at me. “Does that trouble you?”

“I don’t know. It should not, I suppose.” I cleared my throat. “For I am scarce more a virgin than you, when it comes to it.”

I watched as his expression turned to one of utter shock, and he stared at me for a moment. Then he laughed, for he understood: I was not speaking of love and maidenhood, but of carnage and blood. When the men talked of being a virgin, they spoke not of lying with women, but of the difference between those who had not yet been to battle and kept company with death, and those who had.

“True that may be,” he murmured, still smiling. “True that may be. The folk of the Houses keep a grim station, indeed.” Then he grew grave. “A woeful day it is for our City, when our women speak as if they too are at war.”

“We are,” I said. “But unlike to you, our lives have not yet been in close peril, for our men have done well in keeping our foes at bay.”

“Rohan has done well, you mean,” he sighed. “And the men of the North, and the dead oathbreakers. Woeful, too, is the day when Gondor cannot defend herself by her own hand alone.”

“But joyful is the day that she finds her friends in her greatest hour of need, Beren!” I said. “You speak as though any fault lies with you. None of this is your doing.”

“I know,” he said, and stopped walking: we had come to the eastern side of the Circle. We both fell silent as we gazed at the shadow that yet glowered in the distance, blurring the line of the horizon. Still far off, and yet so near. On an impulse, I stepped away from Beren and moved forward to the battlements. I stood there and gripped the railing with both hands, and the white stone was smooth and cool beneath my fingers. Another moment, and Beren was beside me once more. We were silent for a time, both of us staring East.

“I hate it,” he finally said. “To look upon it is to hate it, and yet it has always been there, as long as I can remember.” He shook his head.

“Ioreth once told me,” I said quietly, “that those people who have lived all their lives in the City, those who have been children here, are a peculiar sort. That it comes from growing up beneath the Shadow, so that we are like animals whose eyes are shaped to the darkness, and that we cannot abide too much light at once.”

“Think you that that is the truth?” Beren asked.

“I cannot say.” I looked at him and smiled. “I do not think that I am peculiar, of course. And ‘tis true that Ioreth is different—she is from Lossarnach—but it could be that she is different from all the folk there, as well, for Ioreth is Ioreth. And Lady Éowyn and the Rohirrim are different from us, too, but they are simply from another land with other ways, and no better and no worse, I think. And Valacar…” I trailed off for a moment, and found myself staring in the direction of Mordor again.

“Who is Valacar?” Beren asked.

“He’s a surgeon. From Amroth. And he is different, too. He looks at things in a different way.” I sighed and braced my weight against the railing. Beren was watching me. “And he does not hold the City very close to his heart, I think.”

“Nor should he, if Minas Tirith be not his home.”

“No. He should not have to, I suppose.” 

I turned and leaned back against the stone so that I could face Beren. He was standing straight-backed and silent, this young soldier. He stared out to the East, as if trying to fathom the distance between himself and the Black Lands. I remembered what Valacar had said to me, about the young ones keeping up the hope. For a moment I was sorely tempted to tell Beren everything: about Valacar and Aradîr, and Laeron, and the dead man, and the wounded soldier with his eerie little wooden figures, and the way in which the only Steward we had ever known had passed away, taken by the flames. Things I might not have even told to my mother, had she been here.

Instead I held my tongue.

“I think that Ioreth is right,” Beren said.

“Oh?”

“But only part of the way,” he continued. “We may have grown so that our eyes are shaped to darkness, but this has only made us to seek light more fervently.” He smiled. “So we are peculiar, after all.”

His eyes were kind, but for some reason I looked away from them and turned back towards Mordor and the depthless murk that lay there. _None of this is your doing_ , I had said to him. Nor was it mine, nor any of ours.

“It is out of our hands,” I said, and shook my head. I did not know whether I was speaking more to Beren or to myself. “I need—”

“I know,” he finished for me. “You need to go back to work.”

I nodded and left it at that.

“Very well,” he sighed. “So do I.” He turned to go, and I followed after.


	8. Vigil

“Don’t touch that,” Elloth said as I leaned in to examine an odd-looking root upon the work-bench. At times the dispensary smelled like an entire garden dried and pressed into one room, sweet dark herbs and bitter pale tubers and sharp spices all crushed together in thick confusion. It made my eyes water. 

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said, carefully turning her mortar in her hand, “if you touch it, you’ll die. And what’s worse,” she added, grinding the instrument harder for emphasis, “you’ll have a horrid case of boils.”

I considered this statement for a moment. “I do not think I believe you,” I replied, although I realized that I had placed my left hand safely in the pocket of my smock. My right hand was beginning to ache from the weight of the full water-pail I clutched.

“As you will,” she said, with a brief glance at me.

I set the pail down beside the bench, and the movement sent a gentle ripple out from the center. Small things held my eye these days, strange though it might seem. “There is your water,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said. “And who was that young man with whom you were walking today?” she asked lightly, just as I was turning to leave.

“A soldier,” I said, wiping my hands on the front of my smock. “I tended to a friend of his.”

Elloth nodded, looked thoughtful for a moment. “Does he like you, then?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, although it _had_ occurred to me earlier that young men were not inclined to ask young women whom they disliked to accompany them on walks.

“And what is his name?”

I gave a weary sigh. “Beren.”

“Beren,” she repeated. “Woe betides a woman who loves a man named ‘Beren,’” she added in a solemn voice.

“Valar, Elloth! It was a walk. I don’t _love_ him—or at least I should hope not. I would think that that sort of thing takes a month, at the very least.”

Elloth inclined her head prettily to one side and made a noise that sounded like _hm_.

“How often do you think about such things, anyhow?” I asked.

“As often as I do not care to think of other things,” she replied tersely. I stared at her from the doorway. In the dim light her slender hands were pale against the dark leaves she was crushing in the pestle.

“Well,” I said. “Fíriel is waiting on me.”

“I have been thinking about her, too.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Does she ever seem lonely, to you?”

“No.” I folded my arms over my chest. It had never occurred to me—Fíriel was always moving to fill the empty spaces and to smooth the rough edges of things. “No more lonely than any of the rest of us.”

“Between the two of us,” she said in a loud whisper, glancing up at me, “I always thought that she should marry Valacar. They would be well-suited.”

I raised my eyebrows and opened my mouth to object, as was my habit whenever Elloth took to making such pronouncements. But I found that this time, I found that I could not disagree with my usual virulence.

“Well,” said another voice. I turned and realized that Fíriel had appeared beside me in the doorway. Her own arms were folded; her mouth was unsmiling but her eyes were not unamused. “ _That_ would certainly be interesting.”

But of that she said no more, as both Elloth and I were far too embarrassed to further press the subject.

* * *

I was tired. Mostly I felt chilled, and there was a heaviness behind my eyes. At times my stomach was knotted with worry, but at other times the world would fade into a grey blur and I found that I little cared about what was happening within or without our walls. The news and the rumors, both sensible and wild, persisted in every corner of the Sixth Circle, from the wide doorways of the statesmen’s offices down to the dead-end cobblestone alleys where the message-lads played in their free moments. You could no more avoid hearing them than you could avoid breathing the air. But at times I yet found myself deaf to their meanings, letting the words slide away from me like water from stone.

I was tired, and I was forgetting. It no longer seemed strange to me that the streets and the corridors were dotted with soldiers only, not tradesmen or apprentices, serving-maids or vendors. It no longer seemed strange to lie down in a room that was close and crowded with women every night, instead of my bed in my own house. Many a time when I ached for sleep, my muscles were wound too tightly beneath my skin and I could not make myself be at ease in the dark. I would rest stretched out on the thin pallet and listen to the breathing of the others, and only then would the tales of the day return to me, and I would wonder, in my helpless waking, what was to become of us all.

I no longer found it remarkable to smell the smoke of the funeral-fires every time I stepped outside, nor to turn a corner in the Houses and find a new row of shrouded corpses.

And I was no longer frightened by the hollow windows of the empty houses that lined the echoing streets. I walked by indifferently, and let them stare as they might.

* * *

Elloth’s dispensary records were a busy grid of marks and tallies; I thought of a map of tiny rooms, crowded with people. Rooms and beds and tables, row on row—it made me weary even to think of it.

She noticed me staring. “Are you looking for something?”

“Suppose I asked you for something, but you had no more left, or…”

“Yes, yes,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “We take down everything. All of the requests. The herb-master wants precise tallies, so that we know how much of everything we need to plant, or purchase, or…”

“And what if you had it, but you refused me? Because it was the sort of thing that would kill me and give me boils,” I added.

“We take down everything,” Elloth repeated. “Why?”

“No reason,” I murmured. I thanked her and she watched me as I left.

* * *

And then there were the men who lingered in their dying. The Siege was over and the healers were no longer needed in all places at once. I had to teach myself how to keep vigil at bedsides once more, to wait in the company of waning heartbeats and paling skin. At times my temples ached and I would reach up and slowly slip the cloth from my head and sit with my hair uncovered, though I was not supposed to.

“’Tis women’s work,” Ioreth said to me once in those days. “For everyone is brought into the world by a woman, you see, and so ‘tis only proper that a woman should see them out, when she may. Or that was what my mother in Lossarnach said to me, at least, many years ago. But you know about these things, I should reckon, for you are a clever girl.” She smiled, and her wrinkled hand was soft against my face when she patted my cheek. She had been all the same throughout all of this, not leached sober and quiet like many of us.

She left me. The man lying in the bed behind me groaned, and I turned to tend to him.

* * *

“Does it ever grow dull, when you do naught but sit like that?” Laeron asked me. We were in the kitchens again, and I was waiting for Lady Éowyn’s meal. Laeron was rolling an apple back and forth on the table before him, pushing it between his hands. At the sudden ending of the Siege he had seemed disappointed, though mostly relieved and dazedly astonished as all the rest of us were.

“I like to sit,” I replied. “’Tis good to have a rest now and then.”

“Well, what do you think about?” he said.

“My mother said that if someone is dying, I ought to think about where he is from, and how he might have lived, and his family, as well.” I remembered the days when I was younger and she had taken me by the hand and guided me. _And here is the place where you now must be, dear one_. “She said that no one should pass without being thought of.”

“Does that take a long time, then? Thinking of all those things?” He tossed the fruit up with one hand, caught it, tossed it again.

I shrugged and leaned against the door-frame. My feet were sore. “I don’t do it very often, anymore. It feels too much like inventing stories to myself.”

He blinked. “There is nothing wrong with that.” The apple rose and descended once more.

I held my hands out, palms open. Laeron stared at me for a moment, then threw the apple in my direction.

“Why aren’t you with Valacar?” I asked as I caught it.

“He said that things are going slowly today and that I would do well not to expose myself to unnecessary tedium, because I am but nineteen years old and will have more than ample opportunity for such things when I am older.” I tossed the apple back to him. He tried to catch it one-handed, then fumbled and closed both of his palms around it.

“That sounds like him.”

“Aye,” Laeron nodded, cleared his throat. “Although I suspect it might be more that he does not like the way I arrange his instruments for him.”

“Did he say as much?”

“No. But I can tell. Sometimes he goes and fixes them after I am through.”

“Is he good to you, Laeron?”

“Aye.” He took a bite out of the apple, chewed slowly. “He is. Though he has been quiet, lately. More than is usual, I mean.” He looked around, and said in a lower voice, “And not a word about the dealings with Aradîr, or anything of the sort. Though that is no business of mine, I suppose.” He shook his head.

I looked at my feet. 

“Sometimes,” he went on, “when I am with someone, and they do not speak, it puts me ill at ease. As if _I_ should speak, even if I haven’t got a thing to say. But I do not mind so much when Valacar is quiet. Often I wish he would _tell_ me more, I mean; but he has a good way of being silent.”

“Like Fíriel,” I put in, relieved that the subject had not lingered on the Master of the Houses.

He nodded. “Yes, like her, I suppose. A great deal, actually…”

“Elloth said—” I began with a roll of my eyes, then paused and looked around quickly. Laeron’s attention had risen visibly at the mention of the name. “She said she thought them suited to one another.”

His eyebrows rose slightly and he made a noise that sounded like _hm_. “Well, Fíriel hasn’t a husband, has she?”

“No, she hasn’t. And Valacar has not got a wife, I suppose?”

“He’s never spoken to me of one.” He paused, took another bite of his apple. “Although I am told that some of the surgeons never speak of their wives or their children when they are at the tables and the wards. So that they can keep them apart from…well…” he trailed off, swallowed.

I nodded. To labor in the Houses was to be able to conceal some things, in a way, or at least to reveal only what you chose. Maidens, wives, and widows alike all kept their heads covered, as was the proper and modest thing for ladies who worked in such a place. Men and women who had wedding rings wore them on chains about their necks, under their clothes, so as not to lose them or sully them in the blood and the mire. My mother kept up this practice, even after my father had died. When she was troubled or startled, her hand would go briefly to the spot at her chest where the small bands rested beneath the cloth of her dress.

“But then—” Laeron began, then stopped abruptly.

“Then?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just—he’s said some things, once or twice, and I thought perhaps—” He broke off once more, and this time his gaze went to the space in the door beside me.

I looked to where his eyes were, afraid that one of the subjects of my talk had overheard me for the second time that day, but instead I received a greater surprise.

“Hello, Master Meriadoc,” Laeron said. The _perian_ standing next to me glanced up at me with large eyes, smiling uncertainly. He barely came up to my waist. Pale bandages were apparent beneath his thin shirt, but the color in his cheeks was good. I had glimpsed the small creature now and then over the past few days, and every time I had blinked in bemusement; I was too weary to manage genuine amazement. “This is Master Meriadoc, come to us of late from the North,” Laeron said for my benefit. I nodded.

“Hullo, Master Laeron,” replied Master Meriadoc. I had half-expected his voice to be that of a child’s, but it had the same timbre of any young man’s. “Pleased to meet you, lady,” he said to me.

“And you,” I said. I dropped a curtsey and introduced myself. He was not wearing any shoes, I noticed. He moved between me and Laeron, leaning against the bench and casually palming a piece of bread from the tabletop with an ease that bespoke his familiarity with our kitchens, or perhaps with kitchens in general.

“I was wondering…” he began, looking first at Laeron, and then at me. “Your Warden said…that it might be good for me to sit with the Lady Éowyn while she takes her supper?”

Laeron and I exchanged glances. “Of course,” I said. “Come with me in just a moment, and we will go to her together.”

“Be sure to ask him about the Shire,” Laeron smiled to me as one of the other girls put a full tray of food in my hands. He took another bite of his apple and looked at the perian once more. “You’ll tell her about the Shire, won’t you?”

* * *

Later, the songs and the stories would emerge from the fresh rubble of the War, about the journeys of the Halflings, and all their trials and their perils. We knew already of the one who had sworn himself to the service of the Tower, and of this kinsman of his who had ridden with the Rohirrim and met the Black Captain on the field. Lady Éowyn had enquired of his wellbeing no few times, but I could never offer her an adequate answer; now I was pleased that I could bring him to her in the flesh.

Later, the songs and the stories would tell us all we wished to know and more, but for now Master Meriadoc simply walked beside me and told me of some of the green places of the world. In the narrow parts of the corridor his sleeve would sometimes brush against my skirts. His step was slow from his recent hurts, and as we walked to the wing of private rooms I had ample time to hear of the warm, busy holes his countrymen built in the ground, the gardens and Bywater and the river they called the Brandywine. I could almost see Buckland, myself, or at least I thought I could. He spoke of the place as the weary men were wont to speak of sleep, and as the lonely men spoke of absent children and wives.

“That sounds lovely,” I said. “The fields and forests especially, I think.”

He nodded, craned his neck to look up at me. “That is what many of your people say. You all seem to be in terrible want of trees and grass and things.”

“Aye,” I laughed. “A terrible want. But please, forgive me. I am sure you must weary of telling the same tale to all of us, here.”

“No.” He shook his curly head. “No, I do not mind it at all.”

He spoke, too, of his young cousin Peregrin, and of another cousin and his servant who had journeyed with them for a ways. But of those last two he said little.

* * *

I had planned to sit with the Lady Éowyn and wait on her as I usually did, but then I watched her and the Halfling greet one another in the quiet chamber. She was at first reserved, and he seemed wary and shy. But he went and sat on the edge of her bed and they spoke as I arranged the food upon the table, and there seemed to pass between them something very like that which passed between the soldiers in the wards. A peculiar sort of understanding. I decided to let them alone, and I shut the door behind me and returned to the corridor.

* * *

I tended to one of the black-tagged men. Part of his face had been wrecked; part of his shoulder was gone. I did not know how he was yet alive.

I was thinking back to my talk with Laeron. As I changed the bandages over the oozing flesh, I leaned in to whisper to the man that the King was returned to us. I whispered to him that his struggle had not been in vain. I was close and I could smell him; my breath stirred what was left of his hair. Outside, the sky was gray once again, and the air was heavy.

I tied off the last of the bandages. I did not know if he had heard me; perhaps I was grown still more selfish, I thought, and my murmurings were more for my own benefit than for his.

“You would not rob him of that, then?” said a quiet voice behind me after I had gotten up from my crouch. I turned around and started. It was the wounded soldier, standing now; he leaned easily against the wall, carving knife once more in his right hand. Perhaps he slept clutching it, as well, I thought. In his left hand was another blunt scrap of wood. His eyelids were heavy but the glare beneath them was now sharp. “Rob him of his last hours, no matter how cruel they be?”

I wiped my hands slowly on the front of my smock, pressed them against the cloth. “What do you mean?”

“No, of course you would not,” he went on, unheeding of my query. Again, that private, self-satisfied smirk. “There are too many others, about, are there not? Someone might see.”

“This is no concern of mine, sir. Now, my business lies elsewhere…” I had half-turned to go when he lunged forward and seized me by the arm. His grip was tight. I gasped; his breath was slow and warm at my neck.

Just as quickly, he released me, smiling.

“You mind your hands, sir!” I hissed, hoping that my words were sharp enough to mask any shaking in my voice. I rubbed my arm where he had clutched at me. The man on the bed beside us stirred gently and made a low moaning noise in what remained of his throat.

“Nay, little one. ‘Tis you who would do best to mind yours.” The soldier paused and casually repositioned his knife in his fingers, played the edge lightly about the pale wood. “And that surgeon,” he added. “He has got a look about him, you know. That is not a thing for one time only—‘tis far easier than you would think.”

“What do you know of it?” I demanded, regretting the question as soon as it left my lips.

He regarded me. The smile had not left his face. “Of what?” he said softly. “Of death?” The knife made a quick jab into the wood, then twisted slightly. “Much more than the likes of you, I should wager. Much more than you.” All the time his gaze was on me, but as he spoke he slid the blade lower and closed his left hand into a fist, let the lines of blood bloom around the wood, in the spaces between his mottled fingers. He leaned forward again and I nearly jumped, but this time he only whispered in my ear.

* * *

The gray-haired captain who had told us to check the bodies on the Second Circle for letters had been visiting some of his wounded men in the ward, but now he sat alone on an unoccupied bed in the far corner, turning a piece of parchment in his hands, angling it towards the light. He stopped and folded the scrap when I came and stood before him.

“That man, sir,” I said to him, “that man is not well. He will do himself harm.” _And perhaps others, besides_ , I added silently. My heart was beating quickly and painfully.

The captain glanced up, over my shoulder. “There, against the wall. Over at the end, in the dark jacket,” I said. I did not look behind me.

“And why think you this, good lady?”

“I—he spoke to me, just now, and his words seemed most unsettling, and—”

“Valar,” the captain murmured, still gazing beyond me. “I thought them all lost.”

“What, sir?”

“The markings on his shirt—that is the livery of the eastern river company, if I am not mistaken,” he marveled. “It was their position that took the greatest losses when the forts fell. My men told me that few or none had escaped with their lives, that they were all but swept away. Slaughtered. The numbers of the Enemy were too great.” He looked at me once more, and his face was weary and grave. “Men like that,” he said, “rarely fail to say things that are most unsettling, good lady. They are best left to themselves, at least for a time.”

* * *

The soldier, left hand bright with iron-smelling blood, had leaned in close to me once more, leaned in close to whisper. _And yet, little one, you still do well to confide in men who are soon to be no more_. 


	9. Rain

I don’t care where you live; you cannot know what rain sounds like until you have come to Minas Tirith. It batters against the stone walls and the windows like a hail of pebbles, rattling the rooftops with an insistent roar. It gathers into streams and goes whispering through the old gutters, rising and pooling in the cracks between the flagstones—there is no earth into which it can sink. After a rainfall, the City can stay grey and damp for days on end, like a sodden garment left out in the sun.

There were murmurs of the lingering threat in the East, a Captains’ council, and the man who had come to Minas Tirith claiming kingship. Depending upon where you worked and the sharpness of your ears, you might have had any number of rumors and speculations from which to choose. I heard some of the younger surgeons talking about a lull, perhaps a lasting peace. Ioreth would tell anyone whom she presumed would listen (that is, anyone within earshot) about the new King and the strength of his line, the power of his summonings. Most of the soldiers and riders and guardsmen in the City had drawn themselves back into their own private knots, speaking of the prospect for a new battle, guessing at the numbers of men that could be mustered and the strength remaining within Mordor. The mood seemed to go from grim to hopeful to grim again in the space of a few moments, and so when the rain began, the less confident took it as a sign that things would not go well.

“None of them know what they’re talking about,” Fíriel said. She made a clucking noise with her tongue, a thing she had once told me she tried not to do, as it made her sound like an old wife.

“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked. As I still felt myself to be on uncertain ground with her after the exchange in the dispensary, I refrained from mentioning the cluck.

“I don’t know. I don’t see any use in trying to guess at such things.”

“Well, you must—at least a small bit. Everyone does.”

She was quiet for a moment and she closed her eyes. I listened to the assault of water on the high roofs above us. The grey storm clouds had none of the heavy malice that had accompanied the murk on that dawnless day of the Siege.

“I think that something has got to happen soon. Either we go out, or they come to us once more. Things cannot stay this way.” She paused. “But Ioreth also tells me that this man—this king—is a healer, like us. And that is certainly encouraging.” She smiled, but then she looked at me again and stopped. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’m just tired.”

“As are we all,” she sighed, and she reached over to straighten the cloth on my head. It had made itself crooked again.

* * *

The injured soldier’s words would not leave me. They rung in my ears and turned in my stomach. I went to look for Valacar.

“Not here,” Laeron told me when I asked him.

“Where is he? I’d like to speak with him.”

“Meeting with the Warden, I believe. Look, what is this all about?”

“It—” I stopped and shook my head. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell _someone_. I now had secrets wrapped in secrets, and I could not tease out one piece without unraveling all of it at once. “I think—I think one of the men might be angry with him.”

“ _Angry_ with him? Why?”

“I don’t know. He seems a bit—” I touched a hand to my head. “Not all right.”

“Did he say anything, that might…”

“He spoke to me, and he said…” I could feel the threads coming apart in my hands even as I went on. “He said that I did well to speak to those who would soon be no more.”

Laeron folded his arms. “But isn’t that what you were doing? Tending to the dying men?”

“Well, I was, but the _way_ he said it, Laeron…”

“How did he say it, then?”

“He just sort of—he whispered it. In my ear. But before that, he clutched at me.” I touched my arm. “Pulled me in. Trying to frighten me, I suppose.”

“If he was trying to frighten _you_ , why are you afraid for Valacar?” I opened my mouth, but Laeron continued: “Which of the men is this, anyway? Do you want someone to go and talk to him for you?”

“No. That’s all right—”

“Because that’s not a proper way to speak to a young lady, you know. And a healer, besides.”

“It’s all right, Laeron. Thank you.” I turned to go, hiding a smile.

“Wait,” he said. “Do you think you might—could you stay, for a while? I don’t know when Valacar will be back, and I—well, I’ve never worked by myself before.”

“Of course,” I nodded. “Of course I’ll stay.”

* * *

That was the day I saw the slower-paid wages of the battle. The men with rotted wounds that had crept slowly up their arms and legs—bandages had to be peeled off, and blackness pared away so that the sickness would not take them whole.

I had learned, in my own strange way, to appreciate amputations—I suspect that many of us did. Certainly they were cleaner—if any surgery can truly be called cleaner than another—than the chest-wounds and the stomach-wounds. It was clear, most of the time: go through the flesh, then through the bone with the large saw, then the flesh again. Stitch it all closed, and you know that you are finished.

I had never seen Laeron work before. He was different. When the scalpel was in his hand, all the fidgeting and the nervous shifting subsided. Even his voice took on a slightly different pitch, as if he was no longer searching for the direction in which his words would go. He would do the final inspections and pronouncements before we began: right arm below the elbow, left leg below the knee. Right leg, above the knee.

These men would be all right, I thought. Their wounds would heal. They would live. And maybe Laeron was right about my worries: perhaps it was nothing. It all sounded so silly and formless, anyway, when I had tried to put it all into words. Perhaps everything would be fine.

We did four or five operations in a row. My arms and hands ached. I stood at the washbasin and scrubbed blood from beneath my fingernails. Laeron sat in the chair against the wall, his head tilted back.

“I don’t like the way they move them in and out,” he said.

“What?” I shook water from my hands.

“They just bring them in one at a time, and then they get taken away when it’s done. I suppose it makes me feel like a butcher.”

“Well, you’re a fine butcher, then.”

He smiled, and then he cleared his throat. “The Warden once told me that they used to do it all out in the open, out on the north ward. That might have been better, I guess. Just leave them lying in one place.”

“Why did they change it?”

“Probably because…well, it would have been hard on the others. The screaming, I suppose. The sight of everything. So now we work in these little rooms, when we are able.”

There was a pause, and I listened through the silence.

“It’s still raining,” I said.

“Is it?”

“Listen.”

He closed his eyes, and then he nodded. “It must be dreadful on the lower circles.” He was quiet, and then he opened his eyes and stared at me.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What?”

“Why would one of the men take up a grudge against a healer?”

I shook my head. “He might…perhaps he might not understand everything. So—perhaps the men we worked on today might be angry at us, for a little while. We took something from them, after all.”

I shook the water from my hands; I did not dry them on the front of my smock because the cloth was already too filthy from the day’s work. Laeron got up and walked over to the washstand, splashing water up to his forearms.

“What happened?” he asked. He turned around to look at me, and when I was silent he stared back into the basin. “I’m not stupid, believe it or not.”

“Laeron, I—”

“You what? Can’t quite trust me, I suppose?” He was scrubbing very hard, one finger at a time, as all the surgeons did.

“Laeron—”

“Because I trust you,” he said. “And Valacar,” he added quietly, with a little snort. “Even though he never tells me anything.”

I went and stood next to him, and he still did not look at me.

“It’s not a choice of mine, Laeron. Whether or not I—but I _do_ trust you.”

He sighed, and he did not speak again until he was finished washing his hands.

“Whatever it is, it must be nothing, indeed, compared to—well, compared to everything else.” He shook his head.

“Most things are.”

* * *

Because there was no one else to remove them, we gathered the soiled towels into baskets and carried them to the laundry. In the corridor next to the north ward we passed Elloth, who gave us a nod.

When she was gone, Laeron glared at me suddenly.

“And did you tell Valacar that I liked Elloth?”

“No.” He continued to stare at me over the pile of bloody cloths. “Maybe. I don’t remember.”

“Because I don’t, you know.”

“All right.”

“Probably too good for me, anyway,” he muttered.

“No!” I said, laughing for what felt like the first time in days. “More the opposite, I should think.”

Laeron blushed the same shade as the towels, and then he mumbled something I could not make out.

We were silent as we walked past the north ward. The men were still clustered everywhere, standing in the aisles and resting against the walls, voices raised to compete with the added murmur of the rain. The wounded soldier was standing by an entryway on the opposite side of the room. I tried to look away, but before I could he caught my eye and held it. I started, and stared down into my basket.

“Are you all right?” Laeron asked me.

“Fine,” I murmured. My stomach hurt. “I’m just fine.”

* * *

For once, the thick steam of the laundry room felt good. We set down our towels, and then I pulled my smock over my head and set it on the pile. For all the hours I had spent stripping pieces of mail and armor from dead and wounded men, I was still convinced that a dirty smock was the heaviest garment in the world.

Laeron watched me and wiped his brow, raked a hand through his hair. He looked around at the huge tubs and wringers with mild curiosity.

“Never been here before, then?” I asked him.

“I have, but not for years.” He leaned one shoulder against the pale wall and rubbed his eyes. Then he laughed.

“Is something funny?”

“I was—no, I was just thinking. I heard something strange, today.”

“Oh?”

“I was looking in on Lord Tarnion’s son—he took a spear to the side while he was on the walls, you see. He was running a fever this morning and Tarnion came to visit. The man’s been in a bad way ever since they brought his son back up from the fighting. And the son was sleeping well, but Tarnion was terribly nervous. He reminded me,” Laeron paused, then gave a rueful little grin, “well, of me, I suppose. Kept walking to and fro, wouldn’t be quiet. I tried to get him to leave, but he just kept talking to me, joking with me—trying to make himself feel better, I’d wager.

“And he asked me how I liked working here. And I said, well enough, but that it was hard work. Then he gave me an odd sort of smile, and clasped me on the shoulder, and said, ‘That Aradîr’s not giving you too much trouble, then, now is he?’ And I said no, he was a good master for the Houses. And then Lord Tarnion just sort of laughed, and said how funny he thought it was that he had been made Master in the first place. I asked him why that was, and then he laughed again (I was afraid he would wake his son) and said that he had heard that Lord Aradîr was wont to dislike fellows like me.”

“Fellows like you?” I asked.

Laeron nodded. “He looked to be in a bad way. And he kept calling me ‘lad,’ as well. ‘You greycoats, lad,’ he said, ‘with those soft hands of yours. You did not hear this from me, lad, but he had some terrible trouble some years back.’ And then he asked me if I had ever seen Lord Aradîr’s wife, and I said that I didn’t think I had. And he just said, ‘Well, she’s a pretty one, if ever there was.’ And then he gave that odd sort of smile again, and he did this.”

Laeron held up his left hand, and with his right thumb and forefinger he pressed one of the fingers on his left. It was the finger on which our men and women are accustomed to wearing their wedding rings.

“Well, that’s odd,” I murmured.

“Aye,” Laeron nodded.

“How is his son faring?” I asked as we left the laundry.

“Oh… Well…he’s gone, actually. He died earlier this afternoon.” He shrugged, and scuffed at the floor with the toe of his shoe. “And a strong one, too. We all thought that he would make it.”

* * *

In the corridor, Beren was talking to Elloth. He looked up and smiled when he saw us.

“There you are,” he said.

“Here I am,” I shrugged. “Beren, this is Laeron,” I said, gesturing towards him. “He’s a surgeon.”

“Just an apprentice,” Laeron said. He smiled at Beren and then glanced at Elloth, who looked at me with her eyebrows raised.

“But a very good one,” I said. “And Beren is with the City infantry.” The two young men shook hands. Laeron was all height and angles next to Beren, who stood firmly planted, one foot slightly forward.

“The surgeons here do excellent work,” he said.

“Well, we—we certainly try, I suppose. Thank you.” Laeron passed a hand through his hair again. We were both still slightly damp from the air of the laundry, and Beren’s clothes were dark with water—he had probably just come in from the outside. “And the same may be said of the soldiers here.”

“Yes. Lovely work,” Elloth smiled.

“Thank you,” Beren chuckled. “We try, as well.”

“Well,” Elloth intoned, as if she were singing the opening note of a song, “I should return to the dispensary, now.” Her gaze went from Beren to me, and back again. “Perhaps you should come too, Laeron,” she said with an indulgent little grin in my direction, which I pretended to ignore.

“Oh—well, ah—all right then,” said Laeron, looking at each of us in turn. The calm young surgeon was fading away, and the nervous lad returning in his place.

“Quite,” Elloth nodded approvingly. “Good even—it was very nice to speak with you, Beren.”

“And with you.”

“And what were you talking to Elloth about?” I asked Beren after they had left.

“I simply asked her if she had seen you.”

“Oh?”

“She also remarked that you were a good healer, but a very poor player of cards.”

Under my breath, I muttered something uncharitable.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I said. Then I smiled. “But she thinks you do _lovely_ work.” I made two broad, violent slashes with an invisible sword. “Just… _lovely_.” I stabbed for emphasis.

“Well,” he mused, one hand on his chin. “She _is_ very pretty.” He dropped the last word to a half-whisper and leaned towards me.

I had no reply to make to that, save to put my right elbow into his ribs.

“Hi!” he laughed. “None of that, now.” He shifted his weight away from me, and when he caught his balance once more he had slipped an arm about my waist. “I’ve already been wounded once in this war.”

He was warm against me, and I did not meet his eyes. We were alone in the hallway.

“And might you be, again?” I asked after several moments.

“Perhaps.” He drew a slow breath. “That’s not for me to say.”

“Then what say the others?”

He was silent, and then I heard him clear his throat. “That Gondor is not yet safe.”

“What would you do to make it so, then?” I was not sure if I should lean in closer to him, or if I should pluck his hand away altogether. “Would you attack, or defend?” 

“I would do whatever was commanded of me. Of my company.”

“And if that choice was yours?” I shifted my weight but stayed as I was.

“It would not be. Ever.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Does what bother me?”

“Never to have a choice.”

I could feel him shrug. 

“It was my choice to be a soldier. I knew I would have to follow orders. And what sort of a question is that? You do whatever your Warden asks of you, don’t you?”

“The orders I follow would never kill me,” I said, and regretted it immediately. I was always saying regrettable things to this young man, it seemed.

He was silent for a moment, and then he sighed. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, then.” I looked up at him to find him staring at me. “I have to trust my captains.”

I nodded.

He stepped back from me. “And yet…” he shook his head. “I feel as though there is something they aren’t telling us. Something we’re not privy to.”

I snorted. “I feel the same way.”

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows. “About what?”

“About…things.”

His response was simply to continue looking at me. One day, I thought for no reason in particular. One day I will be able to stare down this man, and he will be sorry indeed. I had seen him as he was that day in the south ward, dressed in his mail, blade at his side, blood running bright trails down his face. But as he was now, I could not imagine him in battle, could not imagine him moving to kill. But then, there was probably very much I could not imagine about him. Very much that I did not know.

“Well, that is the way of things, I suppose. We see naught but our own skirmishes.” He paused, and his expression was pointed. “And what about that other fellow, then? What were you talking with _him_ about?”

“Oh? Laeron? I was aiding him at the surgery.”

“Do you do that very often?”

“Sometimes. He’s in love with Elloth, you know.”

“Is he?”

“Yes.” I grimaced—another regrettable thing. “But pretend I didn’t say that. I’m supposed to be good at keeping secrets.”

“So am I.”

I looked at him, and then I reached for his hand. I wanted to hold something that was not dying or dead.

“What would you do, Beren, if…suppose your friend was wounded near to death.”

“My friends _were_ wounded.” He closed his fingers around mine and I thought of Tarondor. “They are.” He paused. “I would stay with him, if I could. That’s what I would want. If it were me.”

“Aye.” I swallowed. “That’s well.”

“That’s what anyone would do, I should think.” With his other hand he reached up and put two fingers beneath my chin. “Here, now—why all these questions? I never ask you anything.”

“I worry.” I smiled. “Ask me anything.”

“Fine, then. Which circle are you from?”

“Fifth.”

“And how long have you lived there?”

“All my life.”

“And why are you a healer?”

“Because my mother is one. And my grandmother was a healer, too. And most likely her mother, as well.”

“You have it in the blood, then.”

I shrugged, shifting away from his fingers. “I have it in my line. I could never be sure about the _blood_.”

“Well,” he said, moving his thumb slowly against my palm, “I am from the Third Circle, and my father is also a soldier. And his brothers, and my brother. So I suppose that that is in my blood, as well. Or my line.”

Suddenly I felt a dropping sort of feeling in my stomach.

“Beren, am I going to see you again?” I blurted.

He stared at me. “What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean? We only chance upon each other’s paths, now and again. Or maybe I find myself looking out for you, I—I don’t know.” I was pressing his hand more tightly. “And suppose that something does happen, and that you are sent away, and—”

“I’ll come and find you.”

“And there are a great many—well, many of the people I meet, I never see again. I have grown accustomed to that. And I’ve not known you for very long at all. But we’re friends, I suppose, and—” I was thinking that I liked the way he stood and the way he listened. I even thought that I liked that odd barking sort of way that he laughed at times.

“I’ll find you,” he said.

“Will you?”

“I promise.” He reached up with his free hand once more, and touched the backs of his fingers to my face. “I’m glad it was you, you know.”

“What?”

“When, ah—with Tar’. I’m glad it was you.”

“Oh.”

At the noise of footsteps, we dropped one another’s hands. He took a step back from me, just as a black-clad aide walked by. The man glanced at us as he passed.

The next time that Beren looked at me, his face was blank.

“Promise,” he repeated. And when he left me this time he did not say goodbye.

* * *

And for some reason I was missing my father. This was something that seldom happened, and when it did, I found myself picking at the pain, worrying it like you might worry an aching tooth, seeing how long it could last.

I had a few bits of happiness in the back of my mind, but I had to be careful with these, because they became ugly if I held them for too long or turned them the wrong way. I had memories, from when I was very small, of being lifted into the air and tossed until I shrieked with laughter. I had loved him then because he threw me higher and held me more tightly than anyone else did. And I was his lovely girl and his splendid girl, or at least that was what he whispered in my ear when he had caught me in my descent.

And always that sharp, sickly sweetness on his breath. Years later, when an inebriated young nobleman was brought to the wards ( _You’ll keep this quiet, please; his father is rather important_ ) I caught the same scent in his exhalation and was struck with the sudden and giddy recollection of flight.

* * *

I took my supper quickly, by myself, as had become my habit. I picked at my bread and cheese and realized that all of the days were running together in my mind. And now the rain was the only thing in the world—when had it not been raining? I thought of the way the dried blood came away from my hands in the water of the washbasin. Éowyn and the _perian_ , the eastern river company, the books in Lord Aradîr’s offices. I thought especially of the way that the points of Beren’s worn knuckles had felt as they brushed against my cheek. That was a good thing, I thought, because it seemed to be mine and I could hold on to it for myself. Not like all of the other things, which kept slipping away from me, rearranging themselves in my thoughts.

Laeron came into the kitchens and sat down across from me.

“He’s not back.”

“What?”

“Valacar,” he said softly. “He’s not returned. No one’s seen him.”

“No one?”

“Not that I’ve spoken to. He was supposed to be back.”

I had my elbow on the table, and I rested my forehead against my hand and did not say anything.

“So what’s happened, then?” I could hear him shift in his chair. “What is it that’s so bad I can’t know about it?”

“It’s not so bad,” I whispered. He was staring at me. I took a drink of water before going on. “A few days ago, Laeron, when you were abed with fever. I was…they had just put the rationing in place. And one of the men they brought in, he—well, he was good as gutted, Laeron, but he was breathing. Dying.” I took another drink. “And…” I looked down at the table. “Valacar asked me to leave, and I think…” I looked back up at Laeron and made a small motion with my right hand.

Laeron laughed a little when I was finished.

“I don’t think he would do that.”

I was quiet, and his face changed.

“That’s a _stupid_ thing to do,” Laeron said. His voice had dropped nearly to a whisper, but it was the sharpest I had ever heard him speak.

“Well, it isn’t Canon,” I offered.

“It isn’t Canon, and it’s _stupid_.” His fist connected with the tabletop on the final word. “Did you know he was going to?”

“Laeron, if you had seen—”

“Did you know?”

I was silent again.

“Well, did you say anything to him? Before, I mean?”

“No. Of course not.” It had never occurred to me. I was only a girl.

“And so now you think he’s—he’s got trouble for it?”

“Perhaps. He was—they might have wanted him to be the next Warden.”

“There’s—” Laeron traced a nervous pattern on the table with one fingertip. “There’s things that happen, I suppose. When you feel too much. Or not enough.”

“When who feels too much?”

He shrugged. “Everyone. At least, that’s always what my mother said.” He made an end to the pattern. “ _Stupid_ ,” he repeated.

“Laeron, we…that sort of thing happens all the time, you know. But just with the poppy, and no one—”

“I _know_. I know, but that’s different, it’s different, when…” His voice sounded strained, and he trailed off. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.”

He stood up. “Well, I don’t—” He looked around. “I’ve been put on the evening-shift, as well.”

“I’ve not. I can go and have a check about the wards…then maybe the out-buildings.”

“All right,” he sighed. “Will you come back and talk to me, if you have the chance?”

I nodded.

“And Laeron?” I asked. “You’ll keep this close, won’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “Yes. What else am I supposed to do, after all?”

* * *

Most days I could cut across the gardens, and also any number of those small courtyards of which the builders of our City seemed to be so fond, tucked like stone pockets between buildings and alleyways. But when it was raining I stayed beneath the eaves and overhangs that lined the outside walls; there were few things more miserable than going around in wet shoes.

I made my way around the wards, and a knot of dread began to grow in my throat and my stomach once more. I was not accustomed to being alone in this way. There had always been someone to fall back to: the Warden, or my mother, or Fíriel. Now I seemed to have only myself to rely on—except for perhaps Laeron, but he knew no more than I did. Less than I did.

I remembered his fist on the table— _stupid_. 

_And what did you think he would say?_ I asked myself. Perhaps it should have been a relief, but it felt simply like one more thread to add to the tangle of things.

I left the wards and the main part of the Houses. I had no plans of what I should do, if I should do anything at all; but sometimes everything felt clearer to me when I was on my feet. The out-buildings, some offices and small houses and apartments, were clustered a short distance away from the eastern edges of the Houses. Night had fallen, and the City gleamed inexact and grey around me. The sound of the rain pounded in my ears, a dull constant roar.

I turned a corner, and suddenly I found myself very angry with Valacar. Why did he do the things that he did, I wondered, tell me the things that he told me? Couldn’t he have told me to run along, there’s a good girl, like any other surgeon would have? He should have left me stupid and unknowing and happy—or as happy as I could have been, at the time. I had things enough to trouble me. 

More than enough—always more.

And—

“Oh,” I said. I had glanced over my shoulder, and someone was there.

Oh, what? he asked, and I stepped back. Stumbled back, felt a wall behind me. Too many walls in this city.

He was there in front of me, and I wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else, and quickly. In my mind I added and subtracted distances. It was a narrow side-street, nearly an alleyway. I could not remember which of his feet had taken the wound—it could have nearly healed by now.

You’ll let me pass, please, I said.

I moved to the side, tried to get forward, looking for an opening or a slow point. I moved and he caught me by the arm, and this time he did not let go. My surprise turned to panic, and I could hear myself cry out in alarm against the rain and the hardness of his grip.

You’ll be quiet, he said, and then the back of my head struck hard against the wall. Things seemed to bleed away from my mind for half of a moment, and when my sense returned there was only him. He was crushing against me and I could not breathe. Something sharp and cold at my throat. My mind was screaming inside of itself. _Why didn’t you look out? He was there. How long was he there?_

You’ll be quiet, he repeated. I could not breathe. There was no room for me. He was going to break my bones, snap my ribs into halves and pieces. 

You shouldn’t be by yourself tonight, he said. Why are you alone, then?

I blinked. 

Wordless at last. Doesn’t know everything, does she? You don’t know anything, little one. Don’t think you’re better than I am.

Don’t— I choked. His breath was slow and heavy, and I heard it and I could feel it against me.

You weren’t there. You don’t know what it is when they come pouring all about you, and everywhere is death. Too many, you see—everything is eating, with them. Eat you alive, if they could. They’re all teeth. They’re all blood and noise.

I made a sound in my throat. I was limp, I was sick with fear.

You see, he said, they came and they were everywhere and there was nothing else. We were the front lines. We were in front. We were put there. And so first it was for the captains—they were the ones who could kill us. We were marks on a map.

He pushed the carving knife a bit harder against the skin of my neck.

And then they came, and there was nothing else, there was nothing. And now it is for you—it is for you people to kill us, if you like. Kill us as if we were nothing, too.

 _Eastern river company_ , the captain had told me. _I had thought them all lost._ And then I understood: the little wooden men had had no balance to them because they were never meant to stand in the first place. Because they were corpses.

Not for you to say, he said. Not for you to do. Not for you.

He pressed me harder against the wall. He had taken the knife from my neck.

I could kill you right now, he said.

I closed my eyes. I could feel the metal slither lightly over my cheek, against my eyelids, barely touching. My face was wet. He had his hand in the folds of my skirts, and I heard myself make a sobbing noise.

Throw you on the fire. How would you like that, little one? Don’t think that you know everything.

The inside of my chest was burning and I could not breathe.

I may not, though. I don’t have to be like that.

His hand was in the folds of my skirts, and he moved again and I opened my eyes and closed them and everything was black and red. I tasted blood in my mouth. I could not breathe and at some moment he was so close against me that my spine was grating against stone. I fought him, then fought harder, but he was too heavy against me and then he had a hand against my neck and I could not breathe, and all the cries burned and died in my throat and _anywhere else_ , I thought— _anywhere else but_ —and he was killing me and I could not breathe—

When he was finished with me he moved back. Then he was standing over me, fixing his clothes. I was sobbing for air. He touched me with the toe of his boot. I could hear him breathing hard.

Well, don’t cry, he whispered. That wasn’t so bad.

I put my head against my knees and closed my eyes and waited. I was crumpled up in pain and too frightened to move. I did not know how long I stayed that way, but when I looked up again I was alone by the wall in the dark. The air was cool from the water. I leaned forward and retched, and my ribs were aching. The flagstones were damp and rough against the heels of my hands. Some part of my face was dripping blood.

I drank the air and I could not move for a very long time. When I got up, I thought I could still hear the rain falling.


	10. Histories

When my mother was young and unmarried, and the women at the market heard that she worked in the Houses, they would raise their eyebrows beneath their cloth caps and grin at her, asking if she had yet met her sweetheart there. As if the wards were the choice place for courtship, the place where suitor after ailing suitor lined up to meet you and gaze up at you with grateful, lovelorn eyes. My mother would just smile shyly at the market-women as they wrapped up her purchases and counted her coins, for she was always too polite and in too much of a hurry to disabuse them of their notions.

(Had it been me, I might have told them that it was work, just like any other sort of work. I would have told them that, yes, there were men, but most of them were there for a reason. My hand holding a dying man’s hand was as good as any other woman’s. By the end of the War, I had been called by the names of so many wives and sweethearts and daughters that my own seemed to matter very little.)

All the same, there was some truth to it: many of the girls who worked in the Houses met the men they would marry there (as many still do). My mother, however, was not like many of the other girls, and even if the Houses had had in their air some surefire elixir for inevitable, wounded love floating amongst the scents of blood and lye soap, she would have found some way to hold her breath and sneak around the back.

Which is essentially what she did. 

I can imagine her, twenty-six and pretty, before the long years of her marriage and the long years leading up to the war had stiffened the lines of her back and shoulders and put crease marks about her eyes and mouth. When she was a girl, she and her best friend had made a practice of wandering the fifth and sixth circles in their spare moments, finding the narrowest alleyways and the most secluded courtyards (those unexpected pockets of stone), marking in their memories the swiftest routes and also the strangest and most unnecessary ones, the dead-ends and the spiraling paths. I can almost see her, twenty-six and pretty—when her best friend is already wed to that slender, watery-eyed young butcher from the fourth circle, already at home with one baby and another on the way. So that my mother finds herself, more often than not, walking alone.

It is midday and her morning-shift is finished and she is indulging in one of their old shortcuts. She is wearing her blue healer’s dress, but she has taken the knotted cloth from her head and her hair is the color of rich garden earth, dark and arresting next to the stones of the corridor (her sole vanity; she always uncovers her head the moment she leaves the Houses). She weaves her way between the side-streets—too many of the windows that line the walkways boarded like heavy-lidded eyes—footsteps echoing as she ducks beneath a line of colorless laundry. My mother loves the emptiness, though, even if she does not love what it means. She loves how quickly she can weave through it, as if she can outpace the crumbling walls and the shadowed faces she sees every day in the Houses and the market. Her shortcut is almost ended, and she takes one last step through the broad archway that leads out to the main street.

One last step, and she has not looked ahead well enough, and she collides with another body—a barrier at the end of the shortcut, a wall where there should be no wall. She catches her breath and steps back and then she sees the other object in the collision. A tall man who has said something like _Oh!_ Driven sideways and backwards by the force of my mother’s confidence, the assuredness of her steps. Leaning slightly back, large hands hanging his sides, two or three cloth bags lying heavily, dropped on the flagstones beside his feet. He is staring at her now, and he is maybe eight or ten years her elder, or else he is simply that much more tired today. She catches her breath, opens her mouth for an apology, begins to stoop to retrieve the bags. 

But then she stops, because he is laughing. His eyes are wide and bright, and he is laughing loudly, and there is a strange edge of relief to it too, of expectations gratified, as if this is some joke that he has suddenly, finally understood.

She is twenty-six and pretty, and she arrests herself in her stooping and looks at him, and then she begins to laugh as well. The man is my father, and my mother is happy not only because she is laughing in the broad archway, but also because she has no idea what will happen later.

My mother told me the story about the shortcut and the laundry and the laughing. Later I imagined some of it, as well, patching the cracks in the masonry, indulging in my own side-routes and embellishments. But I know that there will always be something I am missing, something that I have not taken into account. Things I could never have dreamt of. So I try not to imagine too much. Really, I can only tell you the things that actually happened.

* * *

It was raining and I stood up with one hand braced against the wall. It hurt to stand and it hurt to move. I was filthy. My fingers were chafing on the stones of the wall because they were shaking. I could not leave and I could not stay there, so all I could do was stand, trembling. It was raining and it was dark. I should not have been out alone.

I was breathing the damp air, over and over, gasps that only went halfway through my chest, and that hurt, too, to breathe like that, but I could not make myself stop. My heart was beating quickly, and the rest of me could not keep pace with it. I did not belong to myself any longer. I only wanted to be where he would not be.

I kept my fingers on the wall and moved down the alleyway. It hurt to walk. I felt ill and I wanted to stop and double myself over, and perhaps I did, once or twice. I would go a few steps, stop and look around me, listening hard through the rain, imagining I heard noises that were not there. I thought for a moment of going down to the fifth circle where our house stood vacant and dark, finding some way to crawl inside and stay there. But then I thought of crouching behind the boarded windows, all of our things in the same places they had been since the final day of the evacuations, stowed and locked away, and it only made me shake harder. I could still smell him on me—he had smelled of metal.

It was a long way to go and I was not sure of it. He had wrenched my bones out of joint, I thought, and I thought that I could still hear him breathing at the back of my neck. One turn moved into another and then I was at the of the east wing of the Houses, at the edge of one of the very small gardens. Few patients ever came here. I had seldom come here, either, but the entryway was open and I stepped inside and I thought I could make my way from there, slip through and find an empty place to sit until I could think again.

* * *

No one who comes to the Houses seeking aid is ever turned away. Still, we rarely see those from the lower circles, unless they are near to death. Carpenters or stonemasons badly injured at work, the very occasional drunkard whom someone has had the care and the time to pull from the gutter.

“They have their own healers on the lower circles,” Fíriel once told me. “Women who work in their own houses, or go to visit the ill in their own beds at home.”

“And who teaches them?” I had asked her. I was eleven or twelve years old, and Fíriel then was a few years younger than my mother had been when she had walked too quickly through a crumbling archway and into her future.

“Their mothers, most of the time,” Fíriel said.

“Only their mothers?”

“Yes, I suppose. Perhaps their friends, sometimes. Why not? Your mother teaches you.”

“Yes, but not only her. So do you, and Ioreth, and the other ladies, and the Warden. And have they got a Canon that they have to recite, as well? How do they know what they are supposed to do?”

Fíriel smiled a little. She was pretty and very grown-up, and I loved being with her because she seemed to know everything, even the things you might not suppose she would. “Well, not all places are like here. Which is probably just as well.”

She was the one to whom they gave the rare girls who came to us from the lower circles. There seemed to be some unspoken rule about it. Thin, ill-treated tavern girls with bruises on their faces and furtive looks in their eyes; they came in quietly, with their heads down.

“Don’t stare,” one of the matrons told me when I was very young. “Besides, those are not good women.”

Later I asked Fíriel if this was true. She looked at me for a moment before she answered.

“No, not bad women,” she sighed, a measure of distance in her eyes. “Working girls.”

* * *

There was a low bench under the eave and I sat down. I was shaking harder. In the Houses during the long days of the Siege we had always had to keep moving through everything. The murk pressed in from the outside, the rumbling of the battles came from below, and we did our best to work the dread into the ground. This was a different sort of fear. There was nothing for me to hold to.

I heard a noise that was not the water dripping down, and I felt myself stiffen. Someone was walking past; I found myself on my feet again. It was a man, and he stopped and came near, and—

“ _Valar_ , there you are. What are you doing here?”

Valacar.

* * *

“Are you all right?” he was asking me. It was too dark to see his face very well. 

“I—” All I could do was shake my head. I sat down again. At least I could breathe a bit more deeply, now.

“You’re _bleeding_.” He reached over to touch my shoulder, and I flinched away. “What happened to you?” When I said nothing, he went on. “How long have you been here?” He was taking off his coat. He leaned towards me and I started. “Here—it’s all right.” He put it over my shoulders, and it was heavy. “You should come inside.”

“Where were you?” I finally managed to whisper.

“Here, take this.” He was holding out a handkerchief and I took it and wiped my face. My hands were still shaking. “You’re staying here in the Houses, aren’t you? North wing, is it?” I nodded. I thought of the wards. I thought of the talk in the wards and how crowded they were. “I’ll take you back there, then. See that you’re looked after, all right?” I thought of the wards, and of all the men, and I could feel myself shaking harder still. It was the sort of sensation I sometimes got when I ran up the stairs too quickly and missed a step—where you had needed there to be a landing, there was only the shock of empty space and lost balance. I put my face in my hands and began to cry.

“Here now, what is it? It’s all right. Don’t you want—” I shook my head. I was not sobbing loudly, only choking on it all at the back of my throat. I thought I could hear him sigh. “All right. It’s all right. Come inside, at least.”

* * *

His handkerchief was still crumpled in my right hand as he stood outside the door in the dim corridor, out of the rain. (“You can come in for a while, at least,” he had said. We were still in the east wing.) He patted at his side, and then looked at me and said, “Coat pocket.” As I took his jacket from my shoulders and gave it back to him, he smiled at me for a moment, the way a person might smile when he is hoping for unlikely good news. I only dropped my gaze downward, and when I looked back up at him he was taking out a key and working it into the lock.

Inside, I stood by the wall while he started a fire in the grate. He was in his shirtsleeves, kneeling with the yellow light reflecting on his face, and he looked like someone I scarcely knew. The corners of the room began to emerge from the darkness as the fire began to blaze. 

This was wrong, I thought. I should not be here. I would have given anything for a proper bath at that moment, or, even better, to find some way to crawl entirely out of myself.

“Come and sit,” he said, and he watched me as I hesitated, and then as I walked over and sank down gingerly before the fire, the heat prickling against my skin. I began to tuck my dress in around me but my fingers dropped away when they found tears in the cloth. I half wished that he would not look at me at all. I knew that in all likelihood I was bleeding underneath my skirts, though I was trying not to think about it. He stood up, walked a few paces off, and sat back down with a towel and a water basin. “Here, look,” he began. “Loosen your collar.” I had a straight cut just below my left collarbone which I could not remember receiving.

He was hesitant and solicitous and he kept his distance. Was I warmer, now? Did I want something to drink? To eat? I could only shake my head. He brought me a blanket. 

“Who did that?” he finally asked, gesturing towards the damp towel I was pressing against my skin. I stared at the floor. I did not want to give him an answer that would only lead to other questions. He cleared his throat. 

“I spoke to Laeron,” he said.

“You did?” I looked up at him again. He nodded.

“After the evening-shift.”

“Evening-shift’s over?”

He nodded again, slowly. “It’s been over for a long time,” he said softly. “He was worried for you.”

“And for you,” I said. I was trying to keep my voice low and even, but it seemed to have taken on a will of its own. I swallowed. “Did he…”

Valacar smiled again, that brief, uncertain expression. “He wasn’t pleased with me, I think.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. You did nothing wrong.” He stared into the fire, then looked back towards me. “Laeron said…you had gone to ask after me?”

When I nodded, he rubbed a hand over his face, and he looked very tired. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You shouldn’t have—” he began, but then he stopped and was quiet.

“How is that? Better?” he asked after a few moments.

I took the towel away from my collarbone. “Fine.”

He leaned closer to me, and I shrank back. “It needs a few stitches,” he said.

“It’s not that deep,” I said. He got up again and went to where his jacket was hanging by the door. He seemed to be going into the pockets once more.

“You’ll have a scar.”

“I don’t care.”

“You might care, later.” He lit a candle on a small side-table. “You know it won’t take long.”

“Why won’t you tell me what’s happening?” I asked.

He had a needle between his fingers but he stopped and looked at me for a long moment. Then he sighed.

“I’ve been dismissed,” he said, pushing the needle through the center of the candle’s flame. “I think you should probably lie down for this, don’t you?”

“ _What_?”

“I’ve been dismissed from the Houses until I receive further notice.” He was threading the needle.

“They can’t dismiss you. We’re still at war.” I pulled the blanket more tightly about myself. Everything was less than real. All I wanted was a bath. I wanted to feel clean and safe and I wanted the pain to go away. I was trying not to think much further ahead than that.

“It would seem that they can. They can, and they have. I don’t want you to worry about any of this. Now, please just come here and—”

“You keep saying that, Valacar. You’ve kept saying that, but you know I’ll worry, anyway, don’t you? If you didn’t want me to ever worry, maybe you shouldn’t have done anything in the first place!”

“You’re shouting,” he said quietly, the way he had said it to me on the day that Laeron had been laid low with a fever, and Valacar had called me in to help. The needle and thread were still in his hands, and he crossed the room and crouched down beside me. I moved away, felt a fresh pang of soreness at my side. “You’re shouting. I’m sorry,” he said. “And I’m sorry that I don’t know what to say to you.” I looked away. “Now, I am going to try to help you. But I can’t unless you let me.”

I had gotten closer to the fire. My face was too warm by now, and I stared at him. He had been dismissed in the end, after all, I thought. Then I nodded.

“All right. Now come and lie down.”

* * *

“Always remind them not to touch their stitches,” my mother had told me. I was still learning then, and it had been odd, trying to make myself put a needle and thread through someone’s skin as if it were a piece of cloth. “They will always want to touch them, but they’ll only make them dirty.”

And now I was passing my fingers over the small seam of thread just below my collarbone, making it sting a little bit more. And why not? I wondered. Valacar probably made the smallest stitches of anyone in Minas Tirith, tailors and seamstresses included, but he was not here to tell me not to touch them. (“Get washed up, if you like,” he had said, pointing me towards the washroom after he had tied off the thread. Embarrassed, as if my reticence had become contagious. The same tone of voice he had used a few days ago when he had asked me if I thought he’d been right.)

I stared at the back of the screen for a few minutes before taking off my dress, thinking of what I would do if a girl came to me in such a state, came to the Houses like this. My back ached where he had pushed me into the wall, my ribs ached where he had shoved against me. He might have raked his hand through my hair, once. It was only after my fingers were wrinkled from the water in the basin that I realized that I could try to get him off of me for the next three hours and still not feel I had succeeded.

* * *

“He never lifted a hand to me,” my mother sometimes murmured after my father had died, speaking to me or to one of her friends at the Houses. “He never lifted a hand to anyone.” As if this were almost enough to make him a good man. The other women would cover my mother’s hand with theirs and nod, silent and large-eyed, but I would simply look away. I did not like to see my mother regress to this timid, apologetic creature that she was not, save for the times when she spoke about my father.

Of course he never lifted a hand to us. That would have taken some enterprise, at least. It would have taken a bit of effort, especially in those last days. How could such a heavy, sodden mass of a man, propped stupidly in the corners of rooms, ever lift a hand to do anything?

My mother had gone back to the Houses to work when I was still very small. She had had little other choice. She had worked, and I had sat and played in the kitchens (“Look how small she is,” Cook had clucked at me. “Have another sweet roll.”) or in the gardens. Beren had been right, in the end; I had loved the gardens. At times I had loved them better than my own house.

So of course I would be a healer. I stayed there in the gardens and in the Houses as I got older, after I was old enough to be of real help. And I stayed there after we learned that Mordor would come, and after most of the others had left. After my mother had left. Of course I had stayed.

* * *

“Have a drink?” Valacar asked me. He was at the side table again, pouring something dark into a glass. He looked at me and I shook my head and found myself disliking him.

I was sitting on his bed, on top of the coverlet, tucking the extra cloth of a robe about me (“That’s clean, if you like,” he had said, handing it to me). Now that my cut was neatly stitched he seemed to no longer know what to do; any surgeon in the Houses would have long ago handed his patient off into the care of someone else, getting ready to receive his next case. I would not let him check me for broken bones and cracked ribs. “It’s fine,” I had murmured, and he had quickly dropped the issue. Only by knotting my fingers into the folds of the coverlet had I been able to keep myself still as his hands had hovered over my shoulder. Under the robe there were still wet spots on my shift, where I had scrubbed hard at the blood and anything else there that I did not care to contemplate in the least. I was hugging my knees to my chest like a small child, trying to see if curling myself around the pain might help lessen it.

Valacar poured a second glass, anyway, and set it on top of the night-table beside the bed.

“In case you change your mind,” he said. “It might help you to sleep, if naught else.”

“Do you want your bed back?” I asked him. He looked very tired.

“No.” Still holding his own glass, he settled down into a chair near the bed. “I’ll just sit here, if you don’t mind.” He took a sip of whatever sort of drink it was.

“I don’t.” Before, I had not studied the room in detail, but now I looked around. Even in the flickering firelight, I could tell that it was small and neat, although things were not as straight and square as he kept them at his surgery (which was not his surgery anymore, I reminded myself). A larger table against one wall, and some chairs. There was a book and an inkwell and writing implements, plain quills and knives, on the table. On the opposite wall was a small shelf with more than a few books, and I wondered at this, for I knew that surgeons’ salaries were comfortable, but far from princely. There were windows above the bed, and the curtains were drawn.

He must have seen me looking, for he simply said, “Bachelor quarters,” and took another sip. I wondered if he was always such a slow drinker. Not everyone liked to space it out like that.

“Have you lived here long?”

“Aye…ten years, perhaps. And I’ve not had company in a while,” he added. I shifted on the bed, which made me grimace. In spite of everything I found myself reaching for the glass on the night-table. The drink had a strong flavor, not unpleasant, and I could feel it immediately, warm and heavy at the bottom of my stomach. I did not drink very often at all, but I had always thought that perhaps the warmth was part of the reason some people seemed so taken with the activity.

“Lossarnach brandy,” he said. “It’s not bad.”

I nodded. He was watching me.

“Are you going to tell me what happened to you?” he asked softly, after a minute or two. 

I could hear the soldier’s voice, feel the blade at my neck, his weight against me. _Eat you alive, if they could_. I was ruined, I thought. That was what they called it. I was wrecked.

“Because if someone has hurt you, there should be consequences for him.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to see you hurt like this.” 

I clutched my glass more tightly. “Then don’t look at me.”

“I think you might feel better if I fetched one of the other women to look after you.” His voice was kind, but all the same I hated the way he said it. All these men. They all thought they knew something. I did not want to be very near to him, but I did not want to be alone, either.

“I can look after myself.”

“I know you can,” he said, setting his glass down on the table and clasping his hands in his lap. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

I took a deep breath and I put my head against my knees.

“I don’t want people to talk.”

“And what will they talk about, sweetheart?” he asked very softly, and something in the softness made my stomach turn.

“Why won’t you _stop_? It’s no business of yours! You can’t—” I could feel panic rise in my throat once more, the meager benefit of the fire and sitting and the resting all suddenly lost. I knew I was shouting but this time he did not tell me so. My back to the wall, and the cries of the Black Captain clawing at the inside of my mind, the glower of shadow in the East, and the rain—

“I just want to _die_ ,” I said, and I lifted my head and stared at him. My voice was breaking. “I’m sure you could be of aid with _that_ , Valacar,” I added.

He did not say anything to that, just stared at me, then leaned forward so that his forearms were resting on top of the bed. I shrank back quickly.

“ _Valar_ ,” he murmured. I had made myself small in the opposite corner of the bed. The shaking was beginning to return. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“You could if you _wanted_ to. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

“But I don’t. I would never.”

“You _could_.” I was blinking back tears and loathing myself for it.

I could hear him sigh. His elbows were still resting on the bed and he had his face in his hands. “ _Valar_ ,” he repeated. “I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can—” He broke off and shook his head and did not say anything else.

I was wiping stupidly at my eyes with the cloth of my sleeve.

“I must be in a terrible state,” I said.

“I’ve seen you looking better,” he conceded.

“No,” I said, wiping at my eyes again. “I must be _awful_. Because you called me ‘sweetheart.’”

I could feel him taking his weight off of the mattress, and then his hand was only over his mouth. He made a noise as if clearing his throat.

“Well. I promise I’ll not do it again, then.”

* * *

Somehow I managed to fall asleep, and then I woke up breathing hard. Cool sweat dotted my forehead. There it was again, that missed-step feeling. For a moment I forgot where I was, and the panic stretched for a moment into my waking, but then I remembered, which was not much of a relief, either.

“Nightmare?” Valacar was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room, near the bookshelf. A single candle was burning on the table.

I nodded. I was sitting up and I had both arms folded in towards myself.

For a while, neither of us spoke, and I stared down into the dark folds of the blanket that was lying across my lap. I looked up at him again. He was still watching me, his head inclined slightly to one side. He had a book in his lap.

“You’re reading?” I asked. He nodded. “What are you reading?” My voice sounded rough. I had been dreaming about eyes and teeth. I did not want to go back to sleep.

He shrugged. “Just looking at an old book.”

“Can I see?”

He nodded and got up and went over to where I was, taking the book in one hand and the candle in the other. I was relieved that he did not seem puzzled or hesitant; perhaps it never even occurred to him to question the fact that anyone else might want to see what he was reading.

“Do you like to read?” he asked as he sat down beside me, setting the candle on top of the night table. He moved slowly and cautiously, either because of weariness or because of me.

“No. I mean, I can’t, very well,” I admitted.

“You could always learn.” He was sitting beside me with a book and everything was wrong, and I could not make it feel right. “This is a very old book,” he was saying, slowly turning the pages. The candlelight was flickering and the words passed in and out of the shadow. “My uncle gave it to me when I was a boy, and his grandmother gave it to him. I don’t know who gave it to her.”

“What’s it about, then?” It was a small book, but thick, and the covers looked as if they were dark blue, though I could not be certain. The paper smelled of dust and age.

“Just a book of histories,” he said, slowly turning the pages. “The writer was very much part of the older tradition—a bit scattershot, and perhaps he relied a bit too much on anecdotes, but lively. Good reading for young boys, I suppose.” I nodded, and he smiled a little. “Of course, my favorite part was always the one about King Valacar. They say that it was he who started the Kin-Strife, depending upon how far back one’s reckoning goes.”

I pulled the covers a bit closer around myself. “What did he do?”

“Well, he…I suppose he married the wrong woman.” He put the book into my hands, as if giving me permission to judge for myself. It was heavy, and I studied the pages open before me, as if the spindly black letters could resolve themselves into a pattern for me. I wondered what Beren must be doing right now. And I almost wondered what _he_ was doing. 

Besides the original lettering and illuminations, there were also passages here and there with lines running beneath them, notes scattered in the margins beside the old black letters like ill-fed stragglers trying to keep pace with an army on the march. “Did you make these marks?” I asked. 

He looked to where my fingertip hovered above the page, and shook his head. “Those were already there when I received the book. I like them, though.”

“Why?” I carefully turned the volume in my hands. “It seems wrong to mark in books.”

“I used to like to think about it, sometimes. The writer is dead, and most likely whoever made these markings is dead, as well. But the words are still here. That’s what I’ve always liked about books, I suppose. Knowing that they outlive us.”

I was quiet for a long moment, and I ran my fingers over the page. I did not know how long it would be until the sunrise, but I knew that the sharp spine of the mountainside would be casting its shadow over the western half of the City, and that the greater Shadow would glower, distinct, in the East once more. I knew that I would have to make myself go back to the wards to help the men and talk to them, even though I wanted to stay quiet and folded in on myself.

“A lot of things outlive us,” I said.

“True enough,” he replied.

“Perhaps it’s good,” I said, “to think about such things. Because it means that nothing we do can ever matter. Not really. Or it matters very little. I mean, not being kings or stewards or anything.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know.” I closed the book with the slow care which I believed was warranted by any such object. “Have you heard anything more about this King of ours?”

He shook his head. “Most likely no more than you have. I have heard that his lineage seems to be true.”

“My brother always used to ask if he could climb up the wall of our house and into the next circle. And my mother would always say, ‘Of course, dear. When the King returns.’”

“She’ll have to think of something different to say, won’t she?”

I nodded, and then I looked away. “I miss them. I miss my mother. I wish I had been with her more before she had to leave. Everyone was so busy—there was no time. I suppose that was good, in a way. There was no time to think about it. I wanted to believe that I would see her again.”

“You will,” he said.

I shook my head. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know about anything.”

“You will,” he repeated.

“I wish she were here.”

“I know.”

I was still aching all over; it was almost worse than before, as if lying there had driven the pain further into my bones. I opened the book again, almost expecting it to creak in my hands like the hinges of an old door, and slowly turned the pages. I wondered idly if there was any namesake of mine tucked somewhere among the black words. Then I thought of something else.

“Who dismissed you, Valacar?”

He was quiet. He did not pretend that he had not heard me, or make a remark about the book, or fuss with the candle wax that was dripping upon the night-table, as I might have done had I wished to evade the question. At any other time, I would probably not have pressed him any further, but I was wounded and miserable, and at the moment I also felt oddly reckless and entitled.

“Lord Aradîr’s not fond of you, then, is he?”

He smiled; a brief concession. “No, not terribly fond.”

“And all because of that man? And because you might be the next Warden?”

“Might have been,” he corrected me. He got up from his chair, and then he retrieved his empty glass and was filling it again.

“Why do you do that?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“That.” I gestured towards the drink in his hand as he sat down again.

He shrugged, looking puzzled. “I like it, I suppose. Why?”

“I was just wondering.”

“Did you want anything else?”

“No.” Nothing that you could give me, at least, I thought.

“But you’ll tell me if you do?”

“Yes. So is that why Aradîr doesn’t like you? Only because of what you did?”

He sighed heavily and he took a drink. “I first met him many years ago,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“So, were you friends with him, once?”

“Not really.” I remembered what Laeron had said to me outside the laundry; it had seemed a hundred years ago, and I had been a different girl.

“Someone said that…I heard that…one of the lords said that Aradîr disliked surgeons.”

“Oh?” Valacar’s voice was mild.

“And that he had a pretty wife.”

He raised his eyebrows. “So that’s what they say, now, is it?” he asked softly. I nodded. He took another drink. “Well, she is very pretty. And probably he does not love her as well as he should.”

“What does that mean?” _A perfect gentleman, I suppose?_ Aradîr had asked me with only a trace of a smirk on his face.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“But it does, doesn’t it?” I watched him, sitting there with his drink in his hand, and resentment seeped into me once more. He had no right to be evasive with me, not now. The wall of the alley was still hard against my back, the rain still in my ears—I had not escaped. I would never escape. And then I remembered—

“It’s your fault, anyway,” I murmured before I could think better of it.

“What is?”

I closed the book and turned my attention to the top of the coverlet, twisting it in my hands again and again.

“What’s my fault?” 

“All the men in his unit were killed. He was the last one. He said it was not for others to decide which of them lived and which of them died.”

“Who said that?” Valacar was staring at me now, intent.

“I thought—” I swallowed and wiped my face on my sleeve, just as clumsily as before. “I thought he would kill me. I really did. It’s not fair.” I was finding it difficult to breathe again, as if my ribs were still being crushed. “I never decided anything.” I thought that Valacar would ask another question, but he was silent. “I thought he would kill me,” I repeated. “Maybe it was my fault. But he didn’t… Hadn’t any right…” I trailed off. My throat had closed up again. Even that, I thought, was more than I should say to him; more than I needed to say.

“Did you know his name?”

I shook my head. I had seen him about, now, and then, I said; that first time when I stood in the garden, clutching a knotted cloth full of slightly burnt sweet rolls.

“It was _you_ ,” I said. “I thought he was angry with you, more than anyone else. Perhaps he is.”

Valacar slowly rubbed one hand over his eyes, the way he only did when he was very, very tired. How many more to go? he had asked on one particularly bloody day in the surgery; a question of diagnostics, not of impatience, but he had touched his own face in that same way.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think that…until…and then no one had seen you. Eastern River Company; one of the captains told me. He had a wounded leg. I have to go and do my shift tomorrow, but I don’t know where he…”

He put his drink down and he had both hands clasped in his lap and he was staring at the floor. He said, “I suppose it would not make any difference to you whether or not I apologized?” _It doesn’t have to mean anything_.

“I’m tired of keeping your secrets for you.”

“And that was very poor of me.”

When I said nothing, he went on: “I’ll speak to the Warden for you; he can—”

“No,” I said, louder than I needed to. “You’ll not say anything. To anyone.”

“He’ll only make sure that—”

“I said _no_.” My voice caught in my throat. “It doesn’t matter, if anything else should happen to me.”

“Why not?” He reached for my left hand, which was still twisting at the folds in the coverlet. I drew it away from him.

“Valar, why do _think_? Suppose you—if you… If it were _your_ daughter, who… You wouldn’t want anyone to... It doesn’t matter, anyway.” My face was wet.

He had withdrawn his hand. “Does it matter to you?”

“Here’s your book,” I said, handing it back to him. He took it wordlessly and set it down on the night-table. “Just don’t. Please. I can look after myself.” Which was probably half a lie; I only wanted my mother.

In some ways it was clear that Valacar had always worked in the surgeries and never in the wards. There were times when he forgot to take all of the edge out of his voice, and perhaps he asked the wrong questions at the wrong times, and besides that he did not know the proper way to tuck in bed covers. But there are also those things that cannot truly be taught or practiced, but that everyone who works in the Houses seems to learn if you simply let them go about their duties for one or five or ten years. And one of these things is being able to recognize the moment at which you should turn around and simply allow your patient to roll over and cry until she is finally able to fall asleep.


	11. Remain and Defend

When I woke up, sunlight was filtering through the closed drapes and Fíriel was kneeling by the hearth, prodding at the embers with a poker. I blinked and watched her for a few moments, until she turned and saw me.

“Good morning,” she said.

I cleared my throat and rubbed my eyes and tried to sit; my head was throbbing. “What are you doing here?”

“Making you tea.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. There was a bad taste in my mouth. She rose slowly, and I saw that there was a kettle in the grate. I felt her weight beside mine as she sat down on the bed, and then I felt her palm against my forehead. Her hand was warm from the heat of the fire, and she smelled of wood smoke and mint leaves.

“How are you?”

I shrugged. She took her hand away and drew back, considering me at arms’ length and looking me up and down with the same mild-eyed, appraising glance that we gave to all of our patients. There were bruises on my forearms.

“I’ve brought you some clean clothes and some breakfast.”

“Where did Valacar go?”

“He is speaking with Laeron, I believe.”

My lips were dry, and when I licked them they tasted of blood. “What did he say to you?”

Fíriel looked at me for a moment. Then she sighed, and began, “He was worried for you. And he said that you would be angry with him. But he did not want you left alone.”

I stared down at the mattress. “He was dismissed, you know.”

“I know that, dear.” She reached towards me again, and at first I moved away from her hand, but then I let her push a few strands of hair off of my face. I took a deep breath and shuddered.

“How long have you been here?”

“An hour. Perhaps a bit longer.” She slid off of the mattress to minister to the hearth once more. I thought of her sitting here in Valacar’s rooms, watching me sleep. It was a well-known fact that Fíriel was the best watch-keeper in the entirety of the Houses. She could sit with slumbering patients for hours on end, watching and listening for changes in their breathing or in the way they stirred or did not stir. She seemed to hardly ever fidget, or even shift in her seat a great deal. “How do you do that?” I had asked her when I was much younger.

“I just think,” she replied.

“What of?”

“Things.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Of very difficult chores that are perfect for little girls to do,” she had smiled at me, and I had left it at that, even though I was sure that she could not think of this all the time.

Now she was taking out the kettle and pouring a cup of tea. She got up and placed it on the night-table, pushing it towards me. “Let that cool for a bit.”

It smelled much like mint leaves, but the odor had a sharper, stronger edge to it. “What is it?” I asked, though already I had some idea.

“Pennyroyal. I’ll make you some tomorrow, as well.” I stared down again and did not say anything. “It’s all right,” she said, and covered my hand with hers.

“I told him not to say anything.”

“I know.” She put the kettle back into the hearth. I was touching my stitches again, my fingers at my collarbone. I watched Fíriel, sitting patiently on her heels between the fire and the bedside. She looked natural, almost as if she was supposed to be here. Besides the patience, this was another thing about her—she never looked in the way or out of place. Probably she could even be sitting in the Citadel courtyard or down in the armories in her plain blue dress, and still find some way to hold herself so that no one would think of the strangeness of it. I watched her, and some part of me knew that I could not truthfully say I wished that she had not come.

“Have you said anything to anyone?”

“Of course not,” she said. I took the cup from the night-table. The tea was still hot, but I took a sip. It was strong, and the taste was so sharp that it seemed to have a separate burn to it. “When you finish that, I’ll give you some chamomile.” I nodded and took a longer drink, and she was still watching me. “You can ask me anything you like,” she said. “About anything at all.”

I swallowed, staring down again. “No,” I said. I put the cup back on the night-table. “I know what happens. I know how girls like me end up.”

And then she was kneeling beside the bed once more, and her fingers were under my chin.

“Look at me,” she said. “Nothing is going to happen to you. Do you understand?”

When I did not say anything, she got up and sat beside me at the edge of the bed. She slid her arms around me and pulled me in close to her. “You’ll be all right, dear,” she murmured into my hair, and then she placed a kiss on my forehead. “Not now, perhaps, but soon.” She was warm and she smelled like chamomile.

She let go of me after I had stopped crying. “There, now,” she said. “We’ll have a look at you, and then you can get changed and have something to eat.” She had a cloth in her hand and she was dabbing at my face. “And be sure to finish your tea.”

* * *

“I suppose he’s read all of these.” Fíriel was standing, facing Valacar’s bookshelf with her arms crossed. “I’ve heard that many men keep a great deal of books so as to seem learned, but never actually read any of them. But he would make a point of having read all of his, wouldn’t he?”

I said nothing and she turned around and looked at me. “I’m sorry. I was only talking to myself, I suppose.” She glanced at my nearly-intact portion of breakfast. “Try to eat a little more.” 

I had not had anything to eat since last evening’s meal. Still, even the good, plain kitchen-food that Fíriel had brought for me seemed about as appetizing as the pile of bloodied towels that Laeron and I had taken to the laundry. I felt hollowed out and not hungry in the least.

Then I remembered something, and I stiffened in panic.

“Fíriel, I was supposed to do a shift this morning.”

“Tuilin is taking it for you.”

“Tuilin?”

“I took one of her shifts two months ago—she’s owed me a favor for quite some time, now,” Fíriel said, adding, “I only told her that you were not feeling well.”

“She gets distracted too easily,” I murmured. “She forgets things.”

“She’ll be all right. Just for this one morning.”

I was silent for several moments, and then I said, “I suppose it doesn’t matter, anyway. People will find out sooner or later, won’t they? Everything’s so close here.”

When I looked back up at Fíriel, she had an odd expression on her face. “I doubt that anyone will talk about that, dear,” she said. At first I thought that she was only trying to soothe me, but then she went on. “You see…” she began, and she walked away from the bookshelf to sit down beside me. “We heard just this morning. The Captains have finished their council.”

“Yes?”

She pushed a piece of bread closer to me, and then she rested her hand on my shoulder. “They are all making ready to move out. The armies are marching for the Black Gate in two days.”

* * *

I went back to the wards; there was nothing else that I could have done. Everything looked different to me. Everyone was speaking of the march to the Gate.

No few people asked me if I were ill, but Fíriel had been right; I needn’t have worried about any idle talk, not with all the other things that people now had to discuss. I made sure to keep my sleeves down about my wrists so that the bruises would not show.

I could scarcely do my work. I was afraid of the men, and I was afraid to be alone. I felt as though everyone were looking at me.

I all but refused to look at Laeron when he accosted me in the corridor.

“Are you all right?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I replied, but then I shook my head. “No.” I was staring at the floor.

“What’s wrong, then?” he murmured. I shook my head. I had my arms crossed in front of me and I was pressing them against my body.

“Something’s happened?”

I only shook my head, once.

“Then what’s wrong? You look—”

“How do I look?”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. “You look tired,” he finally said. “Anxious.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” I demanded. 

“I mean, you look like you want to run away,” he said quickly. I could think of nothing to say to that, and we were both silent.

“I’ve been talking to some of the men,” he finally said. “Most of them are arming to leave, our men and the Rohirrim alike, and a few will remain and defend. They reckon they will send some seven thousand—perhaps more, if there are that many.”

I nodded, and there was a long pause before I said something.

“What was that?” Laeron asked me. It had been so quiet that it was almost a murmur.

“I said that it’s a death sentence.” I still was not looking at him.

“You mustn’t say that. It isn’t true. And even if it were, you still should not.”

“It’s only what I think. So it can’t matter a great deal.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “This isn’t anything to do with Valacar, is it?”

“No.”

“Because I want you to know that I never breathed a word to anyone.”

“I know that.” I lifted my head and looked him in the eye. “I have to go now, Laeron.”

* * *

I did not see the soldier, although I was always certain that he was somewhere just beyond the edge of my sight. Nor, for that matter, did I see Beren. All of the able-bodied men were busy in the barracks, in the stables, and the armories, and there was no longer any time to walk in the gardens or make long visits to the friends who lingered in the wards.

I decided that I did not want to see Beren. At some moments I thought about all of our talks and I very much wanted to see him, but then I thought about the space between us that he would want to cross, and I thought that he might try to press his palm against mine or slide his arm around me again, and that I would not want that at all, and that he might want me to explain. I could see it all stretched out quickly before me, one thing after another, and it made my palms prickle with sweat. So I thought that in the end it would be easiest if I did not see him.

* * *

For those left in the Houses there was a sort of quiet awe about the plan, still punctuated by the dull rhythms of all the old chores.

“And if they fail?” I asked Fíriel. We had gone back to making bandages; our great supply had dwindled, after all that had happened.

“They won’t,” she said. She had been good to me, taking some of my work when she was able, fetching things for me so that I would not have to go for them myself.

“But what if they do?” I persisted.

Fíriel was quiet, and for a time there was only the sound of rending cloth. Then she said, “You know that it will do you no good to think on such things, dear. Not now.”

“I can’t help it.” I knew I should not be short with her, of all people, but I went on anyway. It was like pressing my thumb into one of the bruises over my ribs just to see how much pain I could draw out of it before I had to stop. “Neither can you, I expect. No one can. It’s only that everyone’s afraid to speak of it.”

“Speaking of the worst does not help a great many people.”

I stared at my bandages, and then I asked, “Have you seen Valacar?”

“No, not lately.” When we had left his rooms, Fíriel had let us out herself, locking the door behind us and pocketing the key.

“Oh.” We were quiet again, until I made a noise and set down my knife.

“Did you cut yourself?”

I nodded, my finger in my mouth. “I’ve never done that before.”

* * *

After my shift was over, I took a pile of mending and sat in a corner of the northeast gardens to work on it. “I’ll take care of that,” Fíriel had told me earlier, but I did not want her to have to do all of it, especially after I had been cross with her. It was very slow work, as I stopped and looked around every few moments. I was still aching and I wanted to go and lie down.

The rain clouds had rolled past to leave a clear day, which served all the more to set off the glowering shadow in the East. I could see a hint of it, hovering just above the line of the sixth circle walls. I thought it had grown bigger since last I had glimpsed it. Just like me, that I should choose the _eastern_ gardens today, I thought. Perhaps it meant that I was still capable of a private jest.

Things were quiet except for the barest of breezes, and the occasional sound of a door opening or shutting in the background. I could hear Fíriel’s voice coming from the other side of the hedgerow, perhaps chatting with a patient or with one of the other healers. It was good to know that someone else was nearby. And then with a start I recognized Valacar’s voice, as well.

“…last thing she needed was to be alone with a _man_ ,” Fíriel was saying, her voice still quiet. I hunched over my mending and gritted my teeth. 

“And what should I have done, then?”

“You could have taken her back to the wards.”

“I suppose I should have _forced_ her?”

“You could have sent for me right away, then.”

There was a pause, and then Valacar said, “You’ll excuse me for not thinking with all possible lucidity at that moment. I did what I thought was best at the time.”

Another pause, longer this time, and I could hear Fíriel say, more slowly, “You’ve always had that problem, haven’t you?”

Valacar snorted, and then he said, “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Perhaps we should all think about what will be best for the next day, or the next year, or the next twenty, Valacar.” Her tone was soft.

“Are you reprimanding me again?”

“Of course I am.”

“Well, you’re too late.”

“I’m going back to work, now.”

“Of course you are.”

“Take care. Really, this time.”

“And you.”

There was the noise of shoes crushing the grass, and it was quiet again. And then Valacar appeared on my side of the hedgerow.

“Oh,” he said, looking as surprised at me as I was at him. “Hello.”

I said nothing and stared down at the mending in my lap.

“I think I owe you an apology,” he said softly, stepping closer to where I was sitting. “More than one, most likely.”

I bit my lip and made the barest of shrugs. I did not want to look at him. He stood there until I could no longer bear it.

“I don’t want to speak to you right now,” I said, glancing up.

He nodded once and turned to go. A few seconds later I drew in a sharp breath, and he turned around again.

“I can’t work,” I said, and my voice was flat.

He nodded slowly.

“And what are you doing, then, now that…” I began. “Doing more reading, I suppose?”

“It’s not been a very long time,” he said.

“Do many people know?”

He shrugged and licked his lips before answering. “Not many, at the moment. Now that the Siege is over, there are a great many surgeons who haven’t much to do. They are not all needed at the time, not all at the same instant.”

I glanced down at my mending. The last several minutes’ work was a horrid mess, the stitches large and uneven, as if an old woman with poor eyesight and shaking hands had put them in. I tried to pull out the thread, but my movement was too fast and it snapped. I swore, and threw the whole cloth down on the bench beside me.

“What are you looking at?” I demanded of Valacar, who was still standing there before me.

“Nothing.” He reached down beside me and picked up the cloth slowly, as if I were a sparrow he was trying not to startle. He began to carefully remove the stitches with his fingers.

“Fíriel said you were talking to Laeron. What about?”

Valacar’s hands stopped for a moment, then started again. “Several of the apprentices are considering leaving with the armies. There’s been some sort of a call for field surgeons.”

“But they’re not field surgeons.”

“And that is what I said, as well,” he replied without looking at me. “Perhaps you could speak to them, if you had the chance. Speak to Laeron.” He spent a moment picking at one of the smaller, more recalcitrant stitches. “Chances are good that he’ll listen better to you than he did to me.”

“How long of a battle do they think this will be? To think that they’ll need men like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“They’d want to travel without too much weight, wouldn’t they?”

“They might. But they might also take any man who offered himself up.”

“He’s your apprentice. If he won’t listen to you, he’ll not listen to anyone else.”

“He’s no longer my apprentice.” His voice was flat.

“Oh.” I had pulled my knees up to my chest. “I saw him work,” I added. “The other day. He’s very good.”

Valacar nodded. “He works hard. He’s a clever lad.”

There was a noise somewhere behind us, and I started.

“Are you all right?” he asked. I nodded. “People ought not slam the doors like that,” he said.

I shook my head, catching my breath. My heart was racing and my palms were prickling with sweat. It took nothing to set me off like that, I had soon learned after returning to the wards. 

“You’ve not seen him, have you?” Valacar asked quietly.

“Who? Laeron?” I said, though I knew very well who he was referring to.

“No, the—”

“ _No_. And you’d do best not to press it any more.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not. And you should not have said anything,” I added. “I told you not to say anything. To anyone.”

“I know.” He set the mending back on the bench beside me.

“I know you do.”

“Do you understand why I did it?”

I closed my eyes, but then all I could see was the alley wall, so I opened them again.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m going now.”

He nodded, and his face was a blank. I picked up my mending, and then I got up and turned around and walked into the Houses without looking back.

* * *

“Begging your pardon, Miss.”

The tall man who stopped me in the north ward was wearing the garb of an Ithilien ranger. He looked nervous, but healthy enough, and I wondered what he was doing here.

“Yes?”

“Would you happen to know where Mistress Fíriel is?”

“No. But she should be somewhere around here.”

He nodded. “Thank you kindly, Miss.”

I watched him go and wondered what business he might have with her.

* * *

Lady Éowyn was slowly walking the floor of her room when I went to bring her meal to her. She looked paler than ever, and her hands were in fists.

“You’ll send for your Warden,” she said without preamble. “I wish to speak with him.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Before I left, she also said that these walls were like those of a prison, though at that point she seemed to be speaking more to herself than to me.

* * *

There were always wounded men who were stronger than you might suppose they would be. In the afternoon I crouched beside a sleeping man’s bed to change the bandage on his arm, which had been amputated above the elbow. I was unraveling the bloody linen, and then without warning he jerked away from me, and the cloth was coming away from my hands, and there was blood everywhere, and he kept moving and making everything worse. He was making sharp, panicked noises and he would not be calm when I tried to put my fingers on his shoulder and say something soothing, and he was stronger than I was, and he was going to hurt himself.

This kind of thing had happened to me before, and I knew that I had to speak softly to him and perhaps call for someone else to come and help me quiet him. I knew that very well, but then I had one hand clenched at his wounded arm and another at his chest so that he cried out, and there was blood everywhere and I was saying _Now stop that, just stop that_ in a voice that I could not recognize as I my own until someone pulled me away.

Then I was standing back from the bed, and Fíriel was there, calling for someone else. One of the other girls rushed over and took my place, putting her hand on the gasping man’s forehead, easing him back down and quieting him and doing all the things that I had not done. Fíriel got up and put her hand on my shoulder and led me away.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I felt lightheaded.

“Go and take a rest,” she said.

“But I can—”

“Go and take a rest.”

I nodded stupidly and turned and walked away.

“I’ll have a word with you, please,” someone said as I neared the end of the aisle. Lord Aradîr was standing at the edge of the ward section.

There was nothing I could do except nod. I had blood all over both hands and on the front of my smock, and the shaking was beginning to return.

“I would not have expected that of you,” he said. I remembered his tone of voice from the moments in which he had knelt beside me and told me that the City was dying.

I shook my head and looked down.

“Not in the least. Not from you.”

“No, sir,” I mumbled.

“Look at me when I am speaking to you, please.” There was no anger in his face, but his eyes were hard. “I understand that these are very trying times for everyone in this City, not least of all for the folk of these Houses. Nevertheless, you—we must all work at controlling ourselves, no matter what else troubles us these days. Do you understand?”

“I do, my lord.”

“So I have your word that this sort of thing will not happen again?”

“It won’t, my lord.”

“Very well. We owe that to our men, at the very least, do we not?”

“Yes, my lord.”

I was so dazed that I did not drop a curtsey until he had already turned and was walking away, pausing to say a few words or to nod at this or that wounded man in the north ward. There were red marks on the fabric when I brought my hands away from the sides of my skirts.

* * *

I was sitting by myself in one of the sleeping-rooms when Fíriel came in.

“Is he all right?” I asked a few moments after she had seated herself on one of the other pallets.

“He’ll be fine.” 

I nodded but did not look at her.

“Should I apologize?”

“No. He’ll not remember you. He was in a poor state.”

“I would remember me. If I were him.”

“You should put it out of your mind. It was probably my fault; I should not have left you by yourself.”

I shrugged lamely. “Not your fault,” I murmured. “A man came asking after you,” I added. “A ranger.”

Fíriel raised her eyebrows. “A ranger?”

“Tall, sort of. Dark. Though that’s what most of them look like, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” she said. “Thank you for telling me. Do you want anything?” I shook my head. “When did you last eat?”

I shrugged again. “I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat. And you should rest.”

“I don’t know what to do. I’ve got nothing left if I can’t work.”

“Other people can take care of things for a while.”

“What will I do?”

She looked at me for a long moment, and then she said, “You’re going to lie down and go to sleep.”

I wiped at my nose and my eyes with my sleeve. “Will you stay?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. You’ll be all right here.”

She left, and I curled up on my side and stared at the wall and did not fall asleep. I blinked, and now and again a shudder would coil and uncoil somewhere inside of me. 

I had never understood the people who unreservedly disliked our City, the people who had come here from Lossarnach or Amroth, from the coasts or the fields or the mountains to complain that the walls and the noise chafed at them. I knew that they were simply not looking well enough; that there was always another hidden corridor to discover, always another way to slide in amongst the stones so that everything looked differently. But now I finally understood why those outsiders hated it so; there was simply no way out. It was all a maze that led nowhere but back into itself. I curled up more tightly against myself and ran through every passageway in my mind, until there was nowhere to go but out, out to where the shadows stained the sky. In a way, Lady Éowyn was right, I realized. The City could hold you and protect you, shield you so well that in the end you could not escape.


	12. Besieged

The men and the officers continued to pass in and out of the wards during the following day, their visits growing briefer and briefer and the Houses quieter and emptier by the hour. I was in the South Ward when one of them called to me.

“Come here, girl. Yes, you. Come here for a moment.” 

I turned to see the grey-haired captain from the second circle staring at me, the one who had told me about the Eastern River Company. 

“This is for you,” he said, and he held out a straight dagger, the hilt pointed towards me. It was cool and heavy in my palm when I took it, the handle well-worn.

“Why?”

“You might have need of it.”

I turned the knife over in my hand; it seemed to have a good sort of balance to it. “And what does that mean?”

He took a breath. His hands were clasped together in his lap. “No one remaining in the City should be left unarmed.”

“If ever it comes to a point that the healers should have need to defend themselves, I doubt that blades will do us much good in the end, sir.” I looked at him; he must have known that it was true, as well—how could he not? For me, a weapon of war was of no more use than a trinket, a charm.

“You might have need of it,” he repeated simply, his face betraying nothing. Perhaps it was not meant to be any more than a trinket, anyway. A token to preserve our pride, to guard against the idea of a complete slaughter.

I pushed it towards him. “I would only drop it if ever I had need of it,” I said.

But he would not take it back. “You are all to be armed. Keep it for me, then.”

* * *

I found the Warden in his office at the far end of the North Ward. He was in and out of his rooms so frequently that on many days he did not even bother to close his door—that was how I found it today. I was relieved when I reached the place, for I had become so fearful and anxious that every walk through the corridors had become something of an ordeal.

“Come in,” he said when he saw me standing in the doorway. He was sitting at his desk, sorting through the pile of papers before him. The office was a small and modest room, and I had once heard him say that that was just as well, for the smaller the room, the fewer records he would be forced to keep on hand.

“The Lady Éowyn wishes to speak to you, sir,” I said.

“Very well,” he nodded, his attention returning to the papers. I wondered if any of them had to do with Valacar. “Thank you for telling me.” I took a deep breath that burned at the bottom of my chest, and I stayed where I was, and after a moment the Warden glanced up at me again. “Is there anything else?”

“Sir, I…” I trailed off. My palms prickled with sweat, because I could see things stretched out clearly before me. I could stand there, staring at my feet, and stammer out what had happened, and because he was a good Warden and a kind man he would remove me from the rotations and send my grievance to someone higher up, some captain or guardsman. And then people would talk and there would be stories passed about and I would be asked if things had actually happened that way. I trailed off because it was as though I was standing on the edge of something, and I realized that I was frightened and I did not know what I wanted.

“Yes?” He was looking at me, waiting for me.

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m sorry, it’s nothing.”

He cleared his throat. “I was told,” he said slowly, “that there was something of an incident in the wards earlier.”

“It…you might call it that. There was…no lasting harm, sir.”

“I trust there was not. I trust that you did your best; I take pride in having an excellent staff.”

I did not say anything.

“But,” he went on, “if ever anyone is having any difficulties, I much prefer to hear of it from the source, and not from anyone else.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That is not a reflection on you, particularly.” He turned over a piece of paper. “Simply what I prefer.” I swallowed; I had stepped away from the edge.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Is it true what they say? That everyone who remains in the City needs to be armed?”

“There has been talk of that. I would prefer to ignore such a directive, myself. I suppose that to me, it seems an admission of a certain…” He shifted his papers, glanced out the window, and then looked back at me. “A certain desperation, I suppose. One that I do not think we ought to adopt.”

I nodded.

“Still,” he continued. “I suppose that I would not prohibit it, should it come to that.”

“Yes, sir. Good day to you.”

“And to you,” he nodded, and he watched me as I left.

* * *

I did not know what to do with the dagger that the captain had given me, so I simply tucked it into the bottom of my kit bag, a heavy impostor next to the delicate scalpels and white bandage rolls. It did not make me feel any safer.

I was afraid for the men who would march away tomorrow, and I was afraid for myself, inside of the City. I was exhausted from watching and wondering, of waiting for something to happen. Everything was coming apart before our eyes.

Fíriel continued to make me pennyroyal tea—by my fourth cup I decided that I loathed the taste.

“It makes me ill,” I said.

“It would make you less so if you ate more,” Fíriel said.

“That makes me ill, too.”

“Well, choose the lesser of the evils, then.” She put her hand on top of my head. “You need to be kind to yourself.”

* * *

On the following afternoon, I was turning around to ask Elloth for something in the dispensary, and then I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was on the floor. Elloth was kneeling beside me.

“You fainted,” she informed me.

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I never faint.”

“Yes, you did. I just saw you. Here.” She got up and gathered some dried leaves from a jar on a nearby shelf and handed them to me. “Chew on some of these.”

“Was I down for very long?”

“Only for a moment. I was going to throw some water on you, but then you came around on your own.”

“You would.”

“I said that in jest.”

“I’m sure.”

“By the Valar, it was a joke. You don’t go dumping buckets of water on people when there’s lots of perfectly good lavender lying about. Anyway, clearly you’re not well.”

“No?” I was still sitting on the dispensary floor. I knew I should not try to stand up too quickly.

“You look horrid.”

“Thank you, Elloth.”

“I mean, you look ill.”

“I’m tired.”

“Well, go and rest. You’re a healer, you ought to know what to do.”

“I’ll just sit for a moment and then I’ll be on my way.”

She sighed. “Very well.” She poured me a glass of water and then she went back to whatever she had been doing. “You’ve no need to make a show of things, you know.” She said after a few minutes.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“If you’ve really gone to the point of fainting on the dispensary floor, you’ve no reason to keep soldiering along as though everything is all right. We’re all tired. We’ve all come this far.” On the table above me, she began to mix something in a basin. “What’s going to happen to us, I wonder?” she murmured. She did not sound particularly fearful, just puzzled; it was not the sort of question that truly asked for a reply. “They really will do it, won’t they? They really are going to march on Mordor. It will be strange without all the men here. Even emptier than before.”

I drank my water and made a vague noise of assent.

“What about your young man?” she asked. “What about Beren?”

“What about him?”

“Will he be leaving tomorrow with all the rest?”

I shrugged. “Most likely. He’s healthy.”

“You mean you’ve not asked him?”

“I’ve not seen him. He’s busy.”

“Is that what’s the matter with you, then?”

“What is?” I glared at her.

“You’re worried to death. Or your heart is breaking, or something.”

I stood up and I felt the blood rushing to my head, and I gripped the edge of the table.

“Elloth, no one ever worries themselves to death. And no one’s heart ever truly _breaks_ , unless—unless they’ve been run through. It takes more than that to kill you or make you ill.”

“I know _that_. Don’t fault me for being concerned.” She glared at me from over her mixing.

“I know.” I sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just—people say these things over and over. And it takes more than that to kill us.”

She nodded. “I should certainly hope so,” she murmured.

* * *

Later, the woman in charge of the laundry filled my arms with clean linens and dispatched me to south ward to make up the empty beds.

“A good time to do it,” she had told me approvingly. “Remember the week before, when we ran out of beds? When so many of them were on stretchers on the floor, in the aisles? Horrid. Must have driven our poor Warden out of his very mind.”

I told her I remembered, and that I agreed.

“Thank you, dear,” she said as I left. “There’s a good girl.”

She had piled so many folded sheets into my hands that I could scarcely see over the top, and as I stepped out into the corridor I very nearly collided with someone.

“Oh!” I said, and stepped back and peered around the linens, and my heart was racing again; today everything I could have done seemed like a very poor idea. “Sorry…oh.”

“Sorry,” Valacar said, and once again he looked apologetic and embarrassed. I preoccupied myself with righting the linens in my arms. “Will you please go and speak to Laeron?” he asked me without preamble. I looked up at him again. “He’s set on marching out,” he continued, folding his arms. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell his mother,” he added, as if this were the crux of his problems.

“And why must _I_ go and speak with him?” I demanded. “It’s his own business; he’s not a child anymore. No one ever listens to me, anyway.”

Valacar sighed. “I don’t ask for myself; you don’t owe me any favors. Please speak to him for his own sake. You’re his friend.”

I closed my fingers around the cloth in front of me. It smelt vaguely of the lye soap we used to clean everything in the Houses that was not human.

“All right,” I murmured. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you.”

“Valacar?” I shifted the linens on to one arm pushed a few stray strands of hair from my face with my free hand.

“Yes?”

“Why are you here, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been dismissed. Why are you still here?”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I live here, don’t I? Not _here_ , but…” He sighed. “There’s not very well anywhere else to go, now, is there?”

“No,” I murmured, holding the sheets on both of my arms again. “We all live here now, I suppose.” A silence stretched out between us, and then I excused myself and went to look for Laeron.

* * *

When I found him, he was packing up his kit bag, his instruments spread out on a clean sheet atop a bed.

“Hello,” he said when he saw me.

“You’re not a field surgeon,” I said. “Nor are you a soldier.”

“Thank you,” he said, returning to his task. “I really had no idea.”

I sighed and sat down on the bed nearest him. “You know what I mean. You’ve no need to do this. No one wants to see you leave.”

“Do you think I’ll not return? Is that it?”

“Laeron, it’s dangerous. You know it is.”

“It’s dangerous here, as well. Everywhere, these days.”

I began to bunch up the fabric of my smock in my fists. “It is,” I murmured. “But this is different. Don’t pretend it’s not different.” For a moment there were only soft clinking sounds as he rolled the metal instruments into the linen, and then I went on. “Laeron?”

“What?”

“Are you angry with Valacar?”

He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know. What’s that to do with anything?”

“You’ve got nothing to prove, you know. Nothing at all. You’re a good surgeon. You’re wonderful.”

He stopped and stared at me. “Is that what you think?”

“I do. The day before last, in the surgery, when—”

“No, about—I mean, thank you—but about proving something. Is that what you think I really want?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because—during the Siege, when you were talking about going down to the walls, and then… And Elloth, and…” He raised his eyebrows.

“What about Elloth?”

“Listen to me! Men are always so keen to—”

“Keen to what?” He narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t know, I just—you’re not a field surgeon and you’re not a soldier and I don’t want you to die.”

“Why are you so certain I’ll die? Why are you so certain that the mission will fail?” He put down his instruments. “This past week, you’ve been here, too. You’ve been here and you’ve seen everything. Armies and beasts, elves and _perrianath_ —and our King has come back to us. And the world seems so much vaster now. Anything could happen.”

“That’s what frightens me.”

He sighed again and sat down on the floor, his head resting against the bed frame as he looked up at me. “I was angry at Valacar. I still am. I don’t know. But that’s not got anything to do with it.”

“Hasn’t it?”

He shrugged. “I always thought that surgeons were supposed to be perfect. I thought that he was supposed to be perfect.”

“We all did.”

“They’re always supposed to know what to do. I suppose he did what he thought was right, didn’t he?”

“I suppose,” I murmured. 

“I wish he’d not been dismissed.”

I bit my lip, and then I said, “Me, too.”

“He’s quite fond of you, you know.”

“And of you.”

“He was the one who stopped me biting my nails, you know. When I was sixteen, he just said, ‘You’ll not do that, anymore,’ and so sometime later I just stopped. Just like that.” He shook his head and smiled. When I did not reply, Laeron went on. “Perhaps before, during the Siege…perhaps then I thought I had something to prove. I don’t know. But now…” He trailed off.

“Now what?”

“It doesn’t matter. None of it does. Have you been down to the gates? Down to the Pelennor?” I shook my head. “It’s all gone. It’s wrecked.”

“I know.”

“When you see the land and the stonework gutted like that, it’s almost as terrible to look at as when they brought the dying men to us on the stretchers. And I thought of that, and I thought of all the men, too, and it makes me think that none of the rest of it matters. That it’s not all—I don’t know—that’s it’s not all petty politics, and who’s lied to whom, and who fancies whom, and who’s the best or the worst at everything.”

“Of course it’s not, Laeron.”

“Only _this_ matters in the end, the City and all the people. That’s the only thing we’ve been living for this past week; what all these men have been dying for. And if you had this one chance to go out from here, and to give all you had to give, and to see it all—see everything, wouldn’t you take it?”

“If I were a boy, you mean?”

“Well…yes, I suppose.”

“I don’t know.”

“You would. I know you would. And that’s that.”

I stared at him.

“That’s that, is it?” I whispered. I smoothed out the part of my smock that lay bunched in my lap.

Laeron stopped leaning against the bed and moved forward so that he was on his knees, closer to me.

“Are you going to cry?”

“No. Do I look like it?”

“Sort of.”

“I’m not.”

“Well, now it’s my turn, I should think.”

“Your turn for what?”

“For me to ask you what’s bothering you.”

“I’m just worried, can’t you see? It’s making me go all to pieces.”

“We’re all worried. You were worried before, but you still smiled now and again.”

I smiled.

“That one doesn’t count,” he said. “That was just for show.”

“You can’t say that.”

“Yes I can. I can tell.”

“You’re mad.”

“That’s possible,” he replied. I smiled again. “See?” he said. “That one was a bit better.”

I hesitated, and then I slid off of the edge of the bed and to sit facing him on the floor. This was the world that the children of the Houses lived in, crouching beside the empty beds—it was amazing what a row of them could stand in for: fortresses and forests, caves and tunnels. If you stayed very still and held your breath, it was even possible to become invisible in such low and narrow spaces.

“Nothing I say will make you change your mind, will it, Laeron?” I asked him.

He smiled and shook his head, and I watched him and then I nodded. My own bag was still sitting on top of the bed and I reached up for it and brought it into my lap put my hand inside it.

“You should have this, then,” I said, drawing out the knife. “One of the captains gave it to me, in case I had need of it, he said. But I shan’t need it, so you should have it.”

He looked at the dagger. “Thank you,” he said, “but you should keep it. I’ve already got one like it—it was my cousin’s.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You can probably never have too many of these things.”

“No, you keep it,” he said. And he pulled himself up to sit on the bed again, his attention returning to his kit bag. I got up off the floor as well, and I stood up, brushing off the front of my smock. 

“I’ll see you later then, will I?” I asked.

He nodded. “Of course you will,” he said, and he went back to his work.

* * *

I was passing through the edge of the southwest gardens when Beren called to me. I turned around and saw him standing against a pillar, and he had the fingers of his right hand fanned over his eyes against the sharp light of the setting sun. Looking for all the world as though he belonged there.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello.” He took his hand away from his face and stepped towards me. I stayed where I was. “I promised I’d find you, didn’t I?” he smiled.

“You’re leaving?”

He nodded. “My company moves out tomorrow with the rest of the armies. I’ll not come here again; I won’t have time.” He paused and I waited for him to speak again. “Have you got a moment?” he asked, and I nodded. “Will you come and talk with me, then?”

I hesitated. I really had no reason to say no, so I said that I would.

We sat on one of the small lawns, beneath a massive tree that hunched over the greens like a tired old man. Beren stared up at the branches

“How deep do you suppose the roots go?” he asked. He was removing the sword from his belt and placing it beside him so that he could sit more comfortably.

“What?”

“I mean, how much earth do you suppose it needs? How deep does it go before it hits the stone?”

I shrugged, because I could not have cared any less. I was staring at the ground and was busying myself with tearing up small handfuls of grass. Before, words had come easily to me when I was with him, but now my throat was stopped up. It was as simple as walking to the close of a dead-end alley; there was no further to go.

“I’ve no idea how long we’ll be away,” he went on. “We’re to march east with all possible haste, of course.” I nodded. My throat was closed up, and my stomach was in knots. “I shall miss the Houses, I should think. I’ve decided I like them, after all.” He paused and I could hear him draw in a breath. “Will you look at me?”

I looked at him. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. Are you all right?”

I shook my head.

“You mustn’t be frightened. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I know.”

He leaned forward and took my hand and held it lightly between both of his. His palms were warm and rough with calluses, as the other soldier’s had been, and I drew in my breath and pulled away from him.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, and stared down again. So this is the way it is going to be from now on, I thought. Like Laeron had said: _That’s that_. And Beren would go and that would be that.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Surely you’re not angry with me for going?”

“Of course not.”

“I’ve not been too forward, have I?”

“No, Beren.”

“That’s good.” He shifted and resettled himself on the grass. “Because I will be, now.” He cleared his throat. “I saw you that first time, and you were with Tarondor, and he was... And the second time I saw you, and the third, I looked at you at first and all I could see was him, and that moment when I realized he was going to die. I might have wished never to see you again, if only because you were the one who told me that. But I didn’t mind; I suppose perhaps because you remembered him, too. And you always—this is silly, but—you always had something in your hands, and you always seemed to have something useful to do, and that made it seem as though things were still…normal.”

“Normal?”

He nodded. “As though things were still happening, as though we could still make them happen. As though someone were taking care of things.”

Pretending, I thought.

“Do you still see him now? When you look at me?” I asked.

He shook his head, and he smiled, and I remembered, too. A young man I had never seen before, pale with grief and exhaustion, blood dripping from his forehead into blue eyes.

“No,” he said. “I only see you. And I have to ask you,” he went on, and I looked away and found myself guessing at the directions of this. “If you would have— I was wondering, I suppose. If we had had more time—when I come back, I mean. Not right away, of course, but if you would think about it… If you would have liked to be my wife?”

I was silent, and I realized that the Siege had not ended with the sunrise and the sound of Rohan’s horns on that day. Everything’s going to be fine, he had said, but the truth was that Minas Tirith was still besieged, and all of us caught up in battles between _I will_ and _I would have_ , making the plans for which we could find no footholds.

I was still looking away from Beren, and a sad, sickly sort of feeling washed over me. Silly boy, some part of me was thinking. Sentimental. He ought to know better, ought to know the fickleness of things, the way they shifted. And in some other part of me, a small twinge of happiness unfolded, and I almost let it be. But then I thought, if he knew. If he knew he might not ask at all. And that last made me feel truly ill, as if I were deceiving him just by sitting here, this young man whose company I had enjoyed. This man whom I would miss.

I must have been silent for too long, for he drew in his breath and said quietly: “Well. That’s all right.”

“Beren, I’m sorry.” I wanted to say something good or something sweet, but there was only clumsiness. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” I should have feigned certainty. I should have answered before he finished his question, the way I had when he had asked if Lord Elladan might have saved his friend.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I didn’t mean to…that was improper of me. But I had to ask, you see.” His smile had taken on a lopsided quality.

“It wasn’t improper.”

“We all have to take care of things, you know. Before we go. And now I’ve taken care of this.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. I did not know what else to say.

“I said it was all right,” he replied, and his voice was more even now. “I’d not have wanted you to lie.”

“I wish we had had more time.”

“So do I.”

“There was never enough, was there? All our lives, everything was leading up to this”—I gestured towards his sword, lying beside him on the green grass—“and we never knew. Or I never knew, at least. Part of me always thought that there would be time for everything.”

“But it seems as though it’s always been this way, hasn’t it? It’s only been a few weeks since the evacuations, since my company was called back towards the City. But I can scarce remember a time that Minas Tirith wasn’t like this, it’s seemed so long. It’s a gift, I suppose. The way things seem longer than they are. The way we can grow accustomed to things.”

“Perhaps,” I murmured, and when he did not say anything in reply I simply let the silence grow between us. By now there was a little mound of torn grass beneath my hand. And for the first time ever I wished him gone, not because I liked him any less, but because it seemed that we had finally run out of things to say. And because I was tired of waiting for things to happen; I wanted it all to be over and done.

Perhaps he thought the same, for he stood up and began to brush the grass from his uniform. I got up, as well, and as he was fastening his sword to his belt, he looked at me and said, “I don’t suppose I could ask for a kiss good-bye?” I offered him my cheek. “Prim today, are we?” he laughed, but then he stopped. “Here now, you know I’m only teasing. Don’t look at me so. What’s wrong? You can tell me.”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve not got another lad somewhere, have you?”

“No, Beren!” 

“Valar,” he said, “that was teasing, too. It’s all right.” He sighed. “You take care, then.”

“And you.”

“I’ll see you when I come back,” he said. He gave me a kiss, and then he was gone.


	13. Telling the Story (Interlude)

When Beren returns to the barracks, one of his friends asks him, “So?”

“So what?”

“So what about your girl? What did she say?”

“She’s not my girl.”

The friend is puzzled. “Is that what she said? Or is that what you think? Just the way you’re telling the story?”

Beren feels a little bit ill. Normally he doesn’t take this sort of nonsense from anyone but Tarondor, and Tarondor is dead, so there’s no one, really.

“Just shut up, will you?”

And the friend does.

***

And go back one week, to two other soldiers, in a different place: the outer defenses of Gondor, towards the East.

“We’ll hold them if they come,” says the one to the other. “That’s what the captain says. We’ll more than hold them.” He is a young man and his voice is firm and warm against the stillness of the air. After the fires have been lit for the evening the other men will often ask him to sing, and he is a bit vain about that, but there have been few fires and no songs for several weeks now.

The other is silent. No use, anyway, the first one thinks. Hardly ever speaks. Too much in his own thoughts. A strange set to his mouth, tension in his hands.

“Well then,” the first one says by way of conclusion, and turns away and takes out a needle and thread to do his mending. The light is weakening by the day; must make the most of it. Humming to himself, he sets to patching the dark sleeve of his tunic. And a nice one it is too: Eastern River Company. Pride of Gondor.

***

And now go back sixteen years, a great many births and deaths before all of this, to a pretty young woman wandering the courtyards of the upper circles of the City, walking over dry stones and trailing her fingers through fountains. She is tired of the summer heat and the baking rooms and the sweating stones, the way the flowers wilt almost as soon as the servants bring them back from market in their white bundles. 

She is tired of her husband’s absences. The young statesmen, they’re all of a piece, the other wives console her. It will be better in time, you’ll see.

Yes, she says to them, of course it will.

And now she pulls the edge of her sleeve, dripping, from the fountain, because she has forgotten to tuck it up about her arm, and then she notices the young man in apprentice’s garb sitting on the other side of the stone ledge. He is often here and he seems vaguely familiar, and she goes around to him and looks at him, sorting her thoughts until he takes his nose out of his book.

“I know you,” she says.

“Do you, my lady?” he asks, startled. A pleasant-looking young man, careful with his hands as he sets the heavy volume down in his lap.

“Someone told me your people are from Amroth?”

“They told the truth, then.”

She considers him further. An apprentice from the Houses, by the look of his clothes. “You know my husband, I think.”

“And who would that be, my lady?”

“Aradîr. Attending in the lord Steward’s council.”

A short nod. “I know him, yes. In passing.”

“Many people do, it seems. My people are from Amroth, too, you know. We must keep a lookout for one another, foreigners like us,” she smiles.

He laughs, a bit awkwardly. His attention is gone from his book, not even a finger in between the pages to mark his place. “Yes, I suppose.”

“Do you miss it? The coast?” She knows she is being too direct, as she often is, and yet something about him seems to invite it at the same time. With her, things simply seem to click into motion, like setting a child’s ball down a staircase. Besides, he is only an apprentice and should not mind it very much.

“Yes, very much.”

“You must miss the sea.”

“Of course. Very much. Do you?”

“Every day. Especially on days like today.” And she gestures to the stifling air all about them.

She wrings at the fine cloth of her sleeve, and her forehead is beaded with sweat, and she wants to ask him if he knows the small cove, south and west of the city, with the black rocks that stand like jagged sentinels, and when he came here and if he ever means to go back to where he is born, and if he ever sits in rooms and feels the walls grow closer, as she does. But she stops herself because somehow the time doesn’t seem right. Perhaps later, she thinks. Yes. Later.

“I must go,” she says, “but I’ll see you here some other time, I trust.”

“Yes, you might, my lady. Be you well.”

And she smiles and bobs her head goodbye to him in the graceful way her mother taught her, and she leaves the courtyard, her long heavy skirts trailing the warm summer dust of the City. After she goes, Valacar sits quietly on the fountain for several minutes, and does not open his book again.

***

And keep stepping back and back, now, back beyond living memory (or human memory, at least), when a song of malice was spun in time with a bit of gold, and our history was born. When armies fell and rose, and men lusted for power or for safety and fear began to grow in the belly of the earth. When the winds began to shift, and the little object passed from hand to hand to hand until there was no other way things might have happened, and until the loveliest of cities would become the ragged edge of the world, the gasp before the blackness, a refuge for the frightened and the defiant. When everything seemed to coalesce here, and all the forgotten people who stood on the outside of the great deeds and tales could only shudder at the sweep of events that came to gather them up. When that story began, all of our tales became small and melted in the face of it, and all of our tales became one. 


	14. Stitches

Morning arrived, grey and chilled. I slept poorly and woke shivering; I fancied I could feel the cold floor through the pallet. I dressed and tried to plait my hair behind my head, but my fingers were heavy and thick and they would not do what I wanted them to.

“Shall I do that?” Fíriel asked when she came into the sleeping-room. I nodded and she settled down behind me.

“The men will be leaving soon, won’t they?” I asked as she combed out my hair with her fingers. There was a hesitant and careful way about her movements and I was reminded of my mother.

“Fairly soon, yes.”

“Beren asked me if I would marry him.” Her hands stopped, then resumed.

“Oh? When was this?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“And what did you say?”

“No.” She was quiet, and I twisted round to look at her. “Was that right?”

“Of course, if you don’t want to marry him.”

I turned back around and she resumed her plaiting. “What if he dies?” She said nothing. “I should have said yes, shouldn’t I?”

“No. You should say what you mean.”

“But it wouldn’t have mattered, would it? It would have made him happy.”

I could hear her draw in her breath, then exhale with a sigh. “He is not one of your patients. You did the right thing and you mustn’t worry yourself now.”

“Do you lie to them, Fíriel?”

“Do I lie to whom, dear?”

“The men. If they’re dying, and they ask you if they are.”

“I try not to say one way or the other. It depends upon how much time I think they have, I suppose. Sometimes they need to know.”

“I lie all the time, Fíriel. I don’t mean to. But it’s so easy to lie to them.”

She finished off the end of the plait, and then she took me gently by the shoulders and turned me around.

“Why don’t we talk about something else, now?”

“All right..” I was quiet for a long time, until it became apparent that she wanted me to suggest the topic. Very well, then, I thought. 

“Why did you never marry?”

“I never wanted to, I suppose.”

“Not ever?”

“Not really. Of all the things to talk about,” she said, sounding amused, as if I had wanted to discuss dragons or talking cats. She shook her head and laughed softly and patted my wrists and my shoulder, and her palms were warm. “Well, once, maybe. Once or twice.”

When she did not go on, I said, “You won’t tell me about it, then?”

“It didn’t work out.” She had a way of this, too, at times, of compressing whole ideas and histories into small handfuls of words. It was not an evasion, as it would have been with most other women; it was simply an abbreviation. It was the short version of things.

“You’ll not tell me, will you?” It was more statement than question and I almost wanted to smile.

“It’s not really my story to tell. Not all of it, at least.”

“Oh.” I paused. “I suppose I can understand that.”

“A wise girl you are, then.” She stood up from the mattress and brushed off her skirts. “Shall we go and fetch you your tea?”

I told her that I didn’t need it.

“Oh.” She paused. “You’re sure about that, then?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she smiled. “That’s very good, indeed.”

I nodded again, and then I burst into tears. I suppose it was from relief at first, but at some point when I had my face buried in my palms I realized that this was the only thing I had to be happy about at the moment, and then the crying twisted itself around into something else.

She sat down beside me and put her arms around me. “It’s all right,” she said, and she held me tightly against her. “You’re all right.” Poor Fíriel, I thought. What has she done to deserve me?

She spoke quietly to me—about what I can’t remember, because I think I was becoming like an animal to which sounds mattered more than words—until I could calm myself. And I did, and then I had to get up and leave her because I knew that I needed to say goodbye to Laeron.

* * *

I found him standing in a knot of the other young men from the Houses who were preparing to leave, but I managed to pull him aside for a moment. He was humming and pretending to be unconcerned. All around us people were moving and jostling and making ready, and I had to lean close to him so that he could hear me.

“You’re sure this is what you want?” I asked him, and he nodded. For a second I thought the color of his eyes had a new clarity, as if the light grey had been strained and folded in upon itself.

“I think I asked you that, once,” he said.

“Did you? When?”

“Before the evacuations. When we all had to decide whether we would go or whether we would remain. And your mother was leaving to look after your little brother and your little cousin, and we were talking about what you should do. I asked you if this was what you wanted, and you straightened up, like this, and you looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Of course.’” He smiled. “Of course.”

“I wasn’t sure of myself. But I thought that if I seemed like I was, then I really would be.”

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know.”

“It must have worked, for you’ve always seemed so sure of yourself.”

“Laeron…” I began. When we were thirteen years old we had drilled one another on the words of the Canon as we padded through corridors and gardens: I swear to, I swear not to, I swear. We were so much lighter then; we brought very little weight to the world as we walked. We made no marks. And now he was still the boy I had walked with, but he was also this young man whom I scarcely knew, and I could not reconcile the two in my mind. For a moment I thought I could tell him this and that I could tell him other things, too, and speak just long enough to keep him rooted to the spot as the armies filtered away and the windows closed, and that then he would be safe.

“Yes?”

“Laeron, for the sake of the Valar, look after yourself.”

“I will,” he blinked. I had raised my voice and he looked surprised. The moment had come and gone.

“I mean it. I’m not just saying it. The others will be able to look after themselves. You have to look out for yourself. Really.”

“All right.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“All right.”

“And you need to look after yourself, too,” he said.

“I know.”

“Promise me you’ll be all right?”

I swallowed. “I promise.”

“You need to hold everything together while I’m gone. This place will fall apart without me, I just know it.” He gave me a wry smile, and the young boy he had been was walking down the corridor, away from me, and I knew then that I had lost him. I put my hands on his shoulders and stood on tiptoe, kissing him once on the forehead and then once on the nose. He chuckled, and I smiled.

“There’s my girl,” he said, and he leaned towards me and quickly kissed my cheek.

“I’ll be here when you come back.”

“Take care,” he said.

“And you.”

He was thin and warm and he smelled of soap. I held on to his shoulders a moment more, and then I let him go. I drifted through the crowd, saying goodbye to some of the other apprentices and to a few of the last soldiers who were on their way out. When I was finished I stood in a corner of the ward, leaning back into the wall, my arms folded over my chest, and I watched the other women giving their farewells. I saw Fíriel speaking to one of the men, the ranger who had come looking for her before. They were talking quietly and he had his hand on her elbow and his head was bent down towards her. I watched them until it seemed somehow indecent of me and I looked away.

One of the other girls came and stood next to me. We had begun to do this just before the Siege, all of us in the Houses. We would place ourselves next to one another with no expectation of conversation; we were too tired to talk and words seemed silly and flimsy. There was simply the common understanding that sometimes you only wanted another body breathing next to you, and that that was all right.

She wiped her eyes once on her sleeve, but when she finally spoke her voice was clear. “One hour more,” she said.

Everyone who was born afterwards or who was too young to remember has always heard these stories from the other side of the arc, from safe and solid ground, and sometimes the rest of us have nearly gotten used to telling things this way, as well. Because the very fact of our existence is the proof of our happy ending, the light that emerged after the storms. Now you can pick out any moment in the story like a grain of sand and point to its loneliness or its despair as simply proof of perseverance and heroism, the depths out of which we had to pull ourselves. But pull ourselves out we did: that’s the finish, everyone thinks, there’s the moral. But very few people really seem to think about the moments we spent with our feet halfway over the cliff’s edge, staring down into the darkness that gave us back nothing. Before we knew how it was all going to end.

“One hour more,” I repeated. We stood together until I realized what I wanted to do, and I left her without a word. That sort of thing was all right, too.

* * *

The Second Circle was a sea of men and arms and movement, and I held my breath and walked forward. I asked after Beren’s company once, then twice, and the third man I spoke to pointed me in the right direction. I weaved my way through the crowd and I swallowed when I saw him leaning against the crumbling battlements, polishing his sword, because I had honestly not expected to find him at all, or really ever to see him again. I placed myself in front of him, not knowing what to say, and watched him until he glanced up and saw me. He opened his mouth.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello.” The look in his eyes was mild but guarded. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” he asked. He sheathed his sword and tucked away the cloth he had been using. He had a soldier’s neatness, a soldier’s efficiency. “For yesterday? I told you that you had no need to apologize.”

“No, for…” I drew in a breath and held it until I realized what it was. I took a step closer to him and held my breath again, because this was also like walking into the sea. He was still slouched against the wall, so that I could reach up and put my palm to his forehead where a brown scar had formed, where he had been marked with red the first time I had seen him. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you stitches.” I took my hand away, and he blinked, bemused.

Then he gave a short laugh. “That? That’s nothing. You mustn’t be sorry for that, either.” He put his own hand up to his head where my fingers had been, as if I had left something there.

“No, I mean…” In my mind, I fumbled for the right thoughts or words, and I tried to remember the person I had been before all of this. I had only bits and pieces left and I had to push them blindly together and hope that some of them would fit. “Because I would have made you lie down with your head in my lap.”

He smiled and lifted his eyebrows. “Is that so, then?” He folded his arms and leaned closer in to me. “And then what would you have done?” he whispered.

“Given you stitches.”

“And then what?”

I was silent and he watched me for a few moments. He stopped smiling, perhaps because I was not smiling at all.

“I don’t know,” I finally said. “Just sit there, I suppose. I like sitting with you.”

“And I like sitting with you, as well.”

“So I’m sorry. I do a great many things wrong. And I own to that.”

He was staring at me intently, as if I had something written over my eyelids. “What are you trying to say to me?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “But we can talk about it when you come back. I expect we can talk about a lot of things, then. When you come back.” My voice broke over the last word.

And then his arms were around me and his chin was resting on top of my head. Panic flared in my chest, but he was holding me lightly so that I would not be crushed against the armor he was wearing. His breath was slow and warm on my forehead. The clanks and shouts of preparation still churned around us, but they were now more distant.

“I don’t know what will happen,” he murmured.

“No one does.”

“I’ll not say goodbye,” he said. “And neither will you.”

“All right.”

“You’re just going to walk away. And I’ll see you soon.”

“All right, Beren.”

He closed his arms more tightly around me. Someone was calling his name.

“In a moment,” he replied.

“Beren?” I said. “Will you please look after Laeron if you can? He’s quite brave, but I think he could stand to be looked after.”

He laughed softly, and I could feel it more than hear it. “Well, we could all stand to be looked after, couldn’t we?”

“Beren, please.”

“Of course. I promise to do my best.”

“Thank you.”

The same voice called for him again, this time more urgently.

“In a moment!” he repeated, and then he sighed and released me. I felt cold; it was like leaving a room.

“All right,” he said, looking me in the eye once more. “All right. I’m glad you came here. Thank you.”

I could only nod.

“Be well,” he said.

“And you.”

“Now you need to go.”

I nodded again. I looked at him for a long moment and then I drew in my breath and turned around and pushed my way through the crowd without a backwards glance.

* * *

I stood on the walls and watched the column of men move out of the city. From this height, the banners they held above them looked like little more than child’s ribbons, green and blue and silver and black. The mass stretched out before the walls, and then grew smaller and smaller until it was difficult to think that it was made up of men at all, of bones to be broken and skin to be torn.

There was something, there was a rumor or a movement around the edges of my vision; later I could not remember exactly what it was, but it was there and I knew it. Something snapped in my chest, and then I had the sensation of a vise clamping over my ribs until I had to gasp for breath. I was dizzy and my palms and face were cold with sweat, and my legs lost their strength beneath me. I could not breathe or move. I was down against the wall, aching with panic. My gaze darted from one spot to another, unable to focus: a doorway, a soiled piece of cloth on the ground, a corner of the stonework, and on and on. So this was the end of it, I thought. 

Have a deep breath, I heard someone say to me. Open your hands and relax. Have a deep breath; that’s good, you’re all right.

And then I was breathing again. I looked and saw that it was one of the young soldiers. He sat down beside me and I recognized him.

“Hello,” I said.

“Good morning. You’re all right. You’ve just had a bit of an attack. We see it often out in the field.” 

It’s you, I said. I tilted my head so that I could look at him more closely. Well, that’s healed nicely, hasn’t it?

Yes, it has. All it needed in the end was time. And now I have all the time in the world.

I suppose you do.

He nodded.

You were the only one I remember, you know, I told him. The only one I really remember. All of the others, they only passed through my hands like water. Like blood. And now I can’t remember any of their faces. Or very few.

There were a great many of us, weren’t there?

Hundreds, maybe.

Thousands.

Thousands, I repeated. And now I can’t remember.

Just as well. No one wants to be remembered as you saw us. I don’t want you to remember me like that.

That’s why my mother always told me to think about the dying patients as they lay there. So that I could remember that they were once alive. That they were once just like all the rest of us. At least that’s how it seems to me, now. I think I understand, though I never quite did before.

So now you can remember me like this.

I suppose I can.

Have they gone yet?

Yes. Just now.

He nodded. Good day for a march.

Will they be all right? I asked.

I don’t know.

I don’t suppose anyone does, do they?

No, he smiled. And he had a lovely smile—probably no one had ever accused him of not meaning it when he smiled. You’ll just have to wait and see, he said. That’s the nature of the beast.

I nodded and shut my eyes for a long moment. When I opened them, Tarondor was gone.

I stood up, bracing for support against the wall with one hand. The world seemed to tilt sharply for a second, but then it righted itself and I was on my feet, and I walked away. I made my way along the outer walls of the sixth circle, and by that time the men were completely vanished from sight, as if they had never existed in the first place.

* * *

I walked back to the edges and the out-buildings and the houses, trailing one hand along the stone of the corridors, checking over my shoulder every few moments as had become my habit. My chest was burning but somehow I was lighter, I was somewhere apart from myself.

I stopped at a door and knocked once, then twice. When it opened I stepped back. Valacar looked me up and down with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Laeron’s gone,” I began, before he could utter a word. It seemed that I could only manage apologies today. “He’s gone and I couldn’t stop him. I don’t know what will happen. I’m sorry. I might have gone too, if I were him. I couldn’t stop him and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He looked as though he were still trying to blink away his surprise. “He was set on it, and no one could have swayed him otherwise, I think. Boys are like that. You mustn’t be sorry.” He paused. “Is that the only reason you’ve come here?”

“I don’t know.” My right hand had wandered up to my collarbone as easily as I had wandered here. “Will you look at my stitches? They might be ready to come out.”

He stared at me a long moment more, and then he nodded. “All right.” I held down the collar of my dress with two fingers so that he could see. “No, not yet,” he said. “We’ll give it another week, perhaps.”

“We’ve not got that long,” I said. I took my fingers away from my neck.

“You don’t know that.”

“Are you sure they can’t come out sooner?”

“It needs another week.” He folded his arms and leaned against the door frame. “Why is it so important to you?”

“I don’t know.” I stared away and we were both silent. I realized that I had been biting my fingernails.

“Why are you here?” he asked softly.

“May I come in?”

“If you like.” He stepped back inside, looking puzzled, and I followed. He offered me a chair and shut the door behind me.

“Can you lock it?” I asked. He nodded. There was a clicking of metal and then he came to stand in front of me.

“What is it?”

“I wanted to tell you about Laeron.”

“You did.”

“And to ask you about the stitches.”

“You did that, too.”

“And…” I bit my lip. “He’s still here.”

“Who is?”

I touched two fingertips to my collarbone where the cut was. “Him. I know he is.”

“You saw him?”

I nodded.

“All right.” Valacar ran a hand through his hair. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to tell someone.”

“And what will you do?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m tired.”

There was a long silence, and then I said, “I think I’m more afraid of him than I am of Mordor. That’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“It seems zo.”

“I think you ought to tell someone.”

“I told you, didn’t I? And you told—”

“You know what I mean. Someone else; someone who can help you better than I can.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to.” That was the best I could explain it. A short answer, like Fíriel’s . An abbreviation for a number of other things.

He only looked at me and sighed, as if all the preciseness had been worn from him and there were only these inexact gestures. I stared into my lap. “I think I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying.”

“I might be.”

“You’re not. You’re being very difficult.” He paused and raked a hand through his hair again. “No, I didn’t mean that.”

“I might as well be dying. Am I the only one who understands?” I asked, my voice louder than it needed to be.

“Understands what?”

“They’re not coming back. Laeron and Beren and Mablung and all the others.” 

“Who’s Beren?” he asked.

“A boy,” I said.

“I would have assumed.” 

“They’re only going to die, and then all the rest of us are going to die a little while later. Why does everyone keep pretending?”

“We don’t know that,” he said. “We mustn’t give up. Not now.”

“Stop it, Valacar. It’s too late for you and me both. We can’t help anyone anymore, neither of us.” I mopped at my face with my sleeve. “We can’t. I’m sorry. I’m so afraid. I’m tired of being afraid.”

He was quiet for a long time. He took a breath as if to speak, then hesitated. Then he said, “It’s a gallows crime, you know.”

I could feel myself flinch, and I looked away from him. “I know that,” I whispered sharply. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Murder is a gallows crime, too, Valacar,” I said slowly, looking up to meet his eyes once more. I was not sure what, if anything, I wanted to exact from him, but in that moment the desire was there. “So is adultery.” His countenance did not change at that; he only tilted his head slightly to one side, as if waiting for me to go on.

“I—” I hesitated, then took a deep breath. “Maybe you ought to tell me something about yourself. Since you know a great deal about me, now.”

He opened his mouth again, but then he only gave a weary sigh, and smiled. “Clever girl,” he murmured. “Fair enough. What do you want?”

“What about Aradîr, then, and why he hates you so? What was it all about?”

He stared away for several moments, and then he turned his head to look at me. “Things,” he said, “that happened many, many years ago.”

“So it’s true, then? About you and his wife?”

“No. That never happened.”

“But you said,” I began. “You said that she was very pretty, and that he did not love her as he should.”

“That’s true.”

“So what is it, then?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’ve really no idea, have you?”

“Should I?”

“There was…” he began, then shook his head and gave that weary, rueful smile once more. “Well, yes, but not with his wife.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it.”

I thought about it, and then I said, “Oh.”

“Oh,” he repeated, and there was a brittle sharpness in his voice that I had never heard before. He clapped his hands together and stood up. “Clever girl,” he said, and he went to face the window.

“That’s even worse,” I murmured. His room was the same as it had been when I had spent the night there: furniture lined up neatly against the walls, books on the shelf, brandy-bottle on the table, the simple trappings of a bachelor life. But now it all seemed to slowly take on a different taint. Something sickly and smirking sinking into it all. I wouldn’t have guessed, I thought. I felt vaguely ill.

He turned around and folded his arms. “Juvenile, perhaps,” he shrugged. His tone was brisk and impersonal, as if he were a tutor delivering a history lecture. “He wouldn’t have seen any real trouble, of course. Not with who his family is. But here in the City, when one advances in his career, things like that are bound to become a liability, even if they happened many years ago. Best to eliminate them when the opportunity arises, one could reason. Take the safe route. At least that’s what I assume.” He smiled mirthlessly. I wouldn’t have guessed, not on my own. “I can’t blame him, I suppose. Not really.”

I contemplated the folds of my apron in my lap, and my lips were pressed together tightly. “That’s disgusting, Valacar,” I said.

“You wanted to know.” He paused, and then added, lightly, “You sound like my father. But as you were saying,” he went on, “it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? None of it.” I wiped my face with my apron and did not look at him. “Oh, I didn’t mean that either,” he sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“For how long?” I asked.

“About a year.”

“How old were you?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty,” I repeated to myself, as if there were something especially significant about the number. I considered him, and it was like that first time I had come here and he had knelt at the grate in his shirtsleeves, and he had looked different. And why not, I thought. The walls were crumbling and at this point nothing was going to be a constant.

“It was a long time ago,” he said.

“I suppose.”

He asked me when I had last eaten, and I shrugged off the question. I simply wasn’t hungry and I hadn’t been for some time now. For the time being I had nowhere to go and he certainly didn’t, either, so we just sat for several minutes in the half-light behind closed drapes.

“You were always my favorite, you know,” I said. “My favorite surgeon.”

“Was I?”

I nodded.

“Oh.”

The past was becoming its own story, now, part of something that I could recite to myself by rote if I needed to, but that I could no longer be bothered to believe. It was strange to think that I had ever been small and had a father who lifted me into the air, or that I had a brother who had been small and would crawl into my bed on the nights when something had frightened him and he could not sleep, his weight beside mine, and the facts of his slow breath and dirty bare feet next to me were stories of their own. Of course, to my brother our father was only a story and nothing more because he had not been old enough to remember. He loved you very much, I said to my brother when he was old enough to ask questions. You were his young man; he called you his grand young man. And I was his lovely girl.

And now my brother was ten, old enough to have stayed on as a message-lad if he liked, but still not old enough, it had seemed, to receive the full story beyond bits and pieces. But perhaps that was sufficient; he was a clever boy. And now it made me feel ill, remembering that he was only ten and that our cousin was a mere seven. It was not a very long time at all; I had had more time than both of them put together, which seemed at the moment rather greedy of me.

“When did you last sleep?” Valacar was asking. This morning, I replied. But it’s been a long day.

“It has,” he said.

I let him walk me back to the wards, neither of us saying another word, a wide space between us as we moved. The sixth circle was a hollow shell; echoes of noises were exaggerated and bits of rags and rubbish sat idly on the cobblestones. In a strange way it was almost peaceful and I felt a sort of betrayal at that; as if the City were almost too eager to accommodate its newest and emptiest state.


	15. Brave

It was far too quiet. After the armies had departed, the Houses should have gone back to the way they had been before: calm and airy, the light from the high windows slanting over the beds. Instead there was only a shaken emptiness which no one knew how to fill. The Warden did his best to keep everyone occupied: the extra beds were removed so that they were no longer edge-to-edge in the wards. There were the usual floors and tables to be cleaned and linens to be washed, but the tasks rattled around amidst the long vacant hours. 

We were all waiting, but no one knew for how long, or even what for. When people spoke, it was as if another language was hiding behind their words, one that no one could speak openly, a language of possibilities and death. And some people only wanted to speak, regardless of how many languages there truly were. I missed Beren and Laeron but I was trying not to think on them too much.

I had only seen the man from Rohan once or twice before he tilted his head towards me and said “I need to tell you something.” His right leg had had to be taken off above the knee and now it was healing well, the bandages tied neatly at the place where his thigh ended. 

“Me?”

“Yes. I need to tell you something.” He had a lean, sun-tanned face and wide-set eyes, and he looked as though he could have been seventeen years old.

“All right.” I did not know him and I was uneasy around him. I looked at him again and he could have been forty. I sat on the empty bed next to his. “How is your leg?” I asked mechanically.

“It hurts,” he said, but there was no self-pity in his voice. I nodded. “And the part that’s not there. That hurts the most.”

“That’s not uncommon.”

“But I don’t mind it.”

“No?”

“Because that way, sometimes I can trick myself into believing that everything is all right.”

“Oh.”

“Listen,” he said.

***

He came from a tiny village in the Westfold (so small you might not even name it as a village, a Minas Tirith girl like you, he said), all who lived there knit tautly together by marriage or blood, by gossip and history. And it had been one of the first villages to fall to the Uruk raids. He was in his older brother’s house, and he could not remember exactly—but there was the smell of smoke, the screams of women or horses, or both. There was no time for a plan of escape or of battle; there was no warning at all.

The brother was outside, but the brother’s wife was inside with him and with their baby girl. And there was the noise and the smoke and someone had come rushing in, and then someone was thrusting the baby into his arms and shoving them both into the small cellar of the house. There was a terrible moment of quiet, and then a moment of begging and pleading, and then of screaming.

He huddled behind an old rotting barrel holding the child tightly, and he tried not to listen. He was afraid that her cries would give both of them away and so he tried to quiet her. In his mind he sent up a million exhortations to the spirits that the Rohirrim swear by, which seemed to be like the Valar but in different cloaks. And mostly he kept himself from listening and thinking and weeping by making silent extravagant promises to his brother-daughter (Is that your word, “niece”? he asked me. I don’t like that. It’s too short and there’s no tale-telling to it, not like our words). He promised her that he would be her father from now on, that he would take her far away and that somehow she would never be unhappy. That somewhere he would find a plump, good-natured woman to cook for them both and to sing her songs. That she would have a soft bed to sleep in, and buttermilk and cream and sweet things every day. That he would always keep her out of the cold and the rain. He tried to quiet her and he rocked her and he made these promises so he would not hear the ways in which his brother and his brother’s wife, and his mother and father and grandfather and sisters and their husbands and children all died.

He did not know how long it had been before it was quiet again. And even then he did not trust the quiet, and so he waited and waited until he could no longer bear it. Cradling the child in one arm he stood up, knees and back aching, and pushed up the cellar door. Where his brother’s house had once stood there were only ashes and fragments, an overturned cooking pot and other things that he told himself were only different types of ashes. Where his village had once been there were only ruins and smoke. He walked very slowly and hoped that it was a dream. He called the names of the members of his family, and the names of his friends, and the names of everyone who had lived there, but no one answered him.

It was only then, he told me, so sick and half-crazed that I was, that I noticed that the child had not stirred in my arms. In the dark of the cellar I hadn’t known it, but I was so desperate to quiet her to save us both that I had smothered her. 

He dug a shallow grave with his hands, kneeling on the burnt ground, the ashes tearing his fingernails. He covered the girl with her swaddling-blanket and laid her in and then covered her up with the earth. He lay down on the ground and stared up at the sky, waiting either for the Uruks to return and put him to rest with his village, or for death to come and take him on its own. His mouth was dry and his lungs burned and he did not weep. He did not know how long he had lain there before a group of Riders, out on patrol and alarmed by the rising smoke, came to the place. They lifted him up and fed him and took him away, and soon he became one of their numbers; he could see nothing else that he could do.

***

“Now you,” he said. “You talk.”

“No,” I said.

“Tell me something.”

“No.”

“All right,” he said, and he rolled over so that his back was facing me.

***

I had nightmares, but in that I was hardly alone. A few of the women would take turns saying theirs out loud when there was a cluster of the girls gathered at their mending or their scrubbing, and some of the men would say theirs when they were huddled with their friends over a flask; perhaps so that the dreams would be spread thin among all of us and lose their power, so that we could all see how easily they might be pierced with a needle or smeared with a washrag in the light of day. There was sometimes a twisted easiness about the whole process, I thought, as if they were someone’s aunts or older brothers telling us frightening tales for the good fun of it. A lark for a summer’s night.

I did not share mine, of course. I probably could not have even if I had wanted to, because I would wake only in a dry panic, remembering only a dropping sensation, the flash of a dark wing or piece of cloth. And then the images would come back to me piecemeal throughout the day, at the sight of a pile of bloodied bandages, perhaps, the noise of a door creaking on its hinges. I won’t tell you any of the dreams; they’re not worth my time now, and certainly not worth yours.

I became short-tempered and nervous; many of the others began to avoid speaking with me. For several days, when I did not have any work to do, I would sit in the corners of rooms with my knees drawn up to my chest. Because of the dreams and my own hungry, gnawing fears, it was sometimes the closest to sleep that I could come.

“Little mouse,” Ioreth once clucked, smiling over me with her warm wrinkled hand resting on top of my head. “Hiding away. Are you worried, poor dear?”

I nodded.

“Try and rest your mind a bit, then. Everything will be all a-right in the end, you’ll see. I’ve seen many a thing you’ve not, I’ll wager my purse and all my best herbs, so you should listen to me. You’ll be with your mother and the boys and that young man of yours again soon enough, soon enough.” Light chuck under my chin. “Little mouse,” she repeated, and the hem of her skirts whispered against the floor as she walked away.

***

Lady Éowyn had been moved to the Warden’s own rooms, which faced to the East. Every time I saw her she was staring out of the windows, arms folded across her chest. So absorbed was she with this watch-keeping that sometimes, after I came in with her meal, she would forget to dismiss me. On these occasions, instead of slipping quietly from the room, I would simply stand by the door and watch her as she gazed at the dim horizon, and I would wonder what she might have been thinking about. When she chanced to turn around and see me, there was neither anger nor surprise on her face, though she could have claimed a right to both. She would simply tilt her head to motion me out.

A few times she spoke, though her words seemed to be more for herself than for me. One day she might have murmured something like, “Two days since he rode hence.” She was still facing the window.

“‘He’, my lady?”

She looked over her shoulder to consider me with a glance, much as one might briefly consider a housecat, and then stared out again. “The Lord Aragorn,” she said. And Beren, I thought. And Laeron. And all the men. 

There was a loveliness and a completeness to her sadness that I supposed at the time was the sole provenance of daughters of kings. I was only small and pale and anxious and useless, tripping over my own words; little mouse, indeed. I cleared my throat.

“My lady?”

“Yes?”

“What was it like? When the Lord Aragorn came to the Houses and…”

“Healed me?”

I nodded. “Yes. And the Lord Faramir, and Master Meriadoc.” It was much too forward, almost insolent of me, really, but I was beyond caring anymore.

She shrugged. “He summoned me,” she said. “He called for me and I went to him.”

***

One morning, Lady Éowyn and Lord Faramir could be seen strolling together in the gardens, speaking in low voices; and then the same the next day and the next, his dark head bent towards her fair one. Lord Faramir had been a quiet presence in the wards for the past several days, visiting with those of his rangers who lay wounded and conferring with the occasional councillor in his rooms. He must have known about Lord Denethor and the fire by that point—surely someone must have told him, unless a lie had been fashioned about his falling on the walls. But it was impossible to tell what he thought of it all, at least just by glimpsing him; he looked weary and careworn, of course, but then again, most us of did. I thought of Lord Denethor, whose wife had died many years before I was born—to me he had always been the widowed Steward—and I thought of Boromir, of whom none had heard. And now here was the last son, drifting through the gardens like the last lingering trace of that line.

“They look lovely together, don’t they?” Elloth said of him and of Éowyn. We were at the edge of the southwest gardens and she was bracing herself against the trunk of a slender sapling. “Suppose they’re falling in love? That would be nice.” Keeping her grip, she leaned out and spun slowly around the tree in a dramatic fashion. She was loyal to me in her way; I suspected she would never have avoided me no matter how ill-tempered I became.

“I doubt it,” I said flatly. “Though I suppose the match would be good for Rohan.”

“Jealous, are you? He is quite handsome after all, and—”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“People can’t—when things are like this, they can’t fall in love. That only happens in those silly stories and songs.”

“Hm.” Elloth had taken off her cap and was adjusting her hair with one hand. “Suit yourself, I suppose. I always hoped to marry someone wonderful,” she added.

“Really? I always hoped for someone dreadful.”

She reached out and hit me with her cap. “You know what I mean.”

“Of course,” I said, and then I walked away.

***

Those last days were stagnant and slow and they ran into one another like raindrops on a window pane. My fingernails grew brittle, and it seemed to me that my bruises refused to heal properly—if anything they seemed even darker and uglier than before. There was still the ache in my ribs and my back, and my insides were still sore, as if my body had turned traitor on me.

“Eat,” Fíriel said. At least once a day she would come to me with something in her hand, brown bread and some cheese wrapped in a cloth; some preserved fruit or dried meat. I would oblige her with a small bite or two before my stomach would turn and I could no longer swallow.

“It all tastes the same,” I said to her.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t eat it,” she replied.

“I’m not hungry.”

She drew in a breath, pausing before she next spoke. “Try to eat something, anyway. Don’t let it kill you like this.”

“What?”

“Don’t let him kill you.”

“It won’t matter who kills me in the end, anyway, will it? I’ll be dead all the same.”

She tucked the bread back into the cloth and knotted it up, pressing it into my hand. Her palm lingered against mine. “What can I do to help you? What can I say?” So, this is it, I thought. I did not want to have this conversation at all.

“Nothing.”

“You can’t work like this. You’re a strong girl but you can’t work like this.”

I was quiet.

“Ask the Warden to take you off the rotations.” I persisted in my silence and then she said, “If you don’t, I will.”

“Fíriel…”

“What would your mother want for you?”

“Don’t talk about my mother.”

“Very well, then. There is only so much I can do for you, though.”

“You’ve done enough. You don’t need to do anything else.”

“Valacar told me—”

“I hate him.”

“I don’t care—” she began, and there was an edge to her voice that I had never heard before. Then she shook her head and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “He said that you were in a very bad way, and I have to agree with him.”

“It won’t matter if I’m taken off the rotation.”

“You could get some rest.”

“I can’t sleep, anyway.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know. I want things to be as they were before.”

“As do we all.”

“You have no idea.”

Her mouth tightened. “More than you think,” she replied. “Will you come to see the Warden with me?”

I shook my head. “You’re not my mother, Fíriel.”

“Clearly I’m not. But you need to trust me. You wouldn’t do this to one of your patients. You’d not starve her or deprive her.”

“It’s not starving myself if I’m simply not hungry.”

“That isn’t the point! We could talk round in circles all day like this, and it wouldn’t change a thing.”

“I shouldn’t be one of your problems.”

“That’s not the point, either. You’re not a problem to me; I only want you to ask the Warden to take you off of the rotations. You’ve no need to tell him about what happened. Just say you’re ill from working so hard. Say you’ve lost your appetite and you sleep poorly. It’s all the truth; he’ll understand.”

“But isn’t that the same for everyone, Fíriel? No one is eating as well as they should; no one is getting enough sleep.”

“You know it’s different for you.” She paused and considered me. It had always been rather difficult to tell exactly what she was thinking, and now trying to do so would have been as fruitful as attempting to discern the thoughts of a stone wall. “And I don’t think you know what’s best for you, anymore,” she said quietly.

“How can you say that?”

“If you don’t speak to the Warden before tomorrow, I will.” And then she was gone. I was still holding the cloth with the food she had given to me; I handed it to the first soldier I passed in the corridor and walked off before he could say a word. The truth was, I didn’t want to speak to anyone, anymore. If I could have melted into the stone walls and disappeared, I probably would have.

***

During the first days after the evacuations, I had sometimes made a game of trying to imagine what my family doing, far away with the other refugees. My hands would be sticky with blood, and my eyes would be watering and my feet and wrists sore; but I would think of my brother and my cousin bickering over something silly and stomping away from each other, only to skulk back together an hour later. I would think of my mother humming absentmindedly to herself as she went through her belongings, or introducing herself to strangers and asking them interested questions, and I would feel better, because I could tell myself that they were the same through everything, after all of this. 

It seemed strange that after all these years they should finally have a life apart from me and I from them; it seemed almost funny that they were somewhere else, spinning out a separate existence in which I had no part. But somehow, I could no longer think of them. I tried to imagine these small episodes, and my mind only became blank. Nor could I imagine the men who had marched away with the armies; they were simply gone, and anyway it mattered little. Had I been a superstitious girl, I might have taken this to mean beyond doubt that they were dead; but I was not. I only knew that something inside me had been cut away, that I was left with myself and nothing more.

Sometimes I was alarmed by every noise and movement around me, as if I were wearing my nerves on the outside of my skin. But sometimes I was only dimly aware of things, just as I thought only of that emptiness when I tried to imagine my mother and the boys. Everything was a vague grey haze, and voices were muffled, as if I were observing everything through a skein of linen bandages. I stopped speaking unless directly addressed, and sometimes not even then.

“You,” someone said to me in the wards. “You, again.” I turned around and it was the Rider who had told me the story.

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me something?”

“What?”

“Why aren’t you afraid?”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“I don’t know. You don’t look it. You look as if you don’t care.”

“I do.”

“Are you brave?”

“No.”

“You sound very sure.”

“I’m just as afraid as everyone else. Probably more,” I said sharply.

“But how do you know you’re not brave?”

“Why do you care?”

He shrugged. “I’m tired of talking about the weather, I suppose. That’s all anyone wants to talk to me about. And the lower circles, and how they’re all crumbling to bits. It’s not safe to be down there, I suppose.”

“It’s because they don’t want to talk about the things that might happen.”

“What do you think will happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did they tell you? There must be something. Some sort of plan.”

“No. I don’t know.” Then I remembered the grey-haired captain, and I reached into my kit bag and drew out the knife he had given me. “They wanted to arm us all,” I said, holding out the dagger in its sheath. “All of us, even the women.”

The Rohan soldier took it from me and hefted it in its palm, as if testing the truth of my story. Up until now his face had been as blank as I guessed that mine had been, but now his mouth tightened just a little.

“Very little good it would do me, against—against them. That’s what I tried to tell him, at least. The captain, that is, the captain who told me to keep it. But he wouldn’t take it back.”

The soldier held the knife out to me, handle facing me so that I could take it again. He was looking at me with something very much like pity.

“But it’s not meant for them, you see,” he said. “It’s for you.”


	16. First Circle

There was a stretch of time that spring in which I had only about an inch of real life in me. I would wake up each morning, and if I was not waking from a nightmare then I would have a bleary grey moment or two in which I could not see things properly. And then I would blink and remember to be afraid, and wish that I had not remembered so quickly.

I recalled what one of our soldiers, a pale man with startlingly dark eyes, had once said, trying to entertain a group of the men and the workers as they sat in the south ward. “We all carry our fears in different places,” he told me. “Some men have it here, in the back, and some of us have got it in our head and neck, and then there are those who carry their fear in their bellies. It’s heavy, you see.” As he explained, he had stooped or bent himself over in a painful-looking way to show the toll of fear in different places, and we had all laughed because it had been horrid and funny at the same time and we knew what it was all about, and then, when I thought of it more, it was not really funny at all. And now I remembered him (he had marched away and was gone), and I thought that I was carrying my own fear everywhere: it had seeped like poison behind my eyes and into my temples, in my back and the bottom of my stomach and the soles of my feet and my smock and shift and my kit bag. And perhaps all of us were like this; there was no room for anything else.

***

“You,” said the young man from Rohan. “Sad little girl. With the knife. Will you help me?”

“What is it?” I drifted reluctantly towards the bedside.

“I want to go out to the window.”

“It’s too early for you to be up. You need to rest your leg.”

“I hate this ward. And I’ve no leg to rest, have I?”

“It’s too early. Give it a few more days.”

“I’m tired of it. And you seem like you’re better than the rest of them, anyway.”

“I’m not better,” I said, and then paused; I was beginning to lose track of all the rules, or at least about why I had once held them to such importance. “But I’ll help you.”

He sat up and circled one arm around my shoulders and I helped him stand. He was heavy against me and he winced.

I said, “You can stop if it’s too much.” But he shook his head.

“You’re stiff as a board,” he remarked, shifting his weight. I could feel every shudder that ran through him and every unsteady breath, and I hated it.

At one end of the ward there was a tall window with heavy leaded glass. The ledge below it was wide enough to sit comfortably upon. I left him there and returned with my arms stacked with pillows, one for his back and another for his leg.

I got up on to the other end of the ledge and tucked my skirts beneath me; the ledge was long enough to seat us both with a wide space between us. Through the glass, the rooftops of the Fifth Circle and then the Fourth and the Third tumbled out below us, but the thickness of the pane made it all wet and indistinct. It reminded me of an artist’s frieze tucked away in some corner of the Fifth Circle that I had once paused before with my mother when I was little. She was taking me along on some errand, no doubt, but she liked to make out that small trips to buy cloth or milk in the markets were actually grand excursions for the two of us; at least she did in those early days, and I would marvel at how adventurous she was, my mother, and how it seemed she could lead us anywhere on earth. 

I had stood with my nose nearly against the frieze, trying to discern what this all might be about. “No, come back here,” my mother had smiled, and she took my hand and drew me back so that I gazed up at the entire picture, and figures and faces emerged so suddenly that I nearly gasped. I had walked back and forth like that several times, slowly and quickly, my eyes never leaving the wall as I tried to reason how nearness could not yield a greater understanding of the thing. And now I stared out over the rooftops, blurred by the window and battered by the Siege, and wondered if I ought to edge away and put my heels against the opposite wall as I had so many years ago.

“Thank you,” said the young man as he settled in. We were quiet for several minutes, and then he said, “It’s so high up. I’ve never been so high up.”

“So what are you looking for?” he asked after I failed to respond. “Staring out there.”

“Nothing.”

“Have you got someone out there? I suppose you’re waiting.”

I looked at him, but he was staring through the window. There was a hungry kind of expression on his face.

“Everyone always thinks it’s a man,” I said.

“Do they?” 

“Anytime a girl looks sad, it’s always, ‘Missing your young man?’ As if we can’t think about anything else.”

He shrugged. “Lots of us here, and not many of you, I suppose. You’ve all got your pick of the lot.” He paused. “So is it a man, then?” he persisted.

I shook my head. “It’s everything.”

“You’re not in love.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because when you are, it’s all you want to talk about. To anyone who’ll listen.”

“So what about you? Have you got a girl?” I knew what his answer would probably be, but I asked anyway.

“I had one. In my village. I had a girl.”

“Was she pretty?”

He shook his head, still staring out the window.

“No?” I asked.

“She was perfect.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be. You didn’t know her.”

“What was her name?”

“Maethwyn.”

“Maethwyn,” I repeated, though I regretted it, for pressed through my Minas Tirith accent the name lost its music.

We were quiet for a long time. I hadn’t seen Fíriel all day. Maybe she was walking down the corridor at this moment, listening, knocking on the door to the Warden’s offices even though it already stood ajar. I had worn her out at last. I leaned my head against the window, and even through my cap I could feel the cool glass.

“It is a man,” I murmured.

“Is it?”

“It _was_ a man.”

“Is he dead?”

I shook my head. “I think about him all the time.”

He said nothing.

“But I don’t know if he thinks about me, too. But he must have, at some point.” I hugged my knees to my chest.

“You must like him.”

“No.”

“Wronged woman, are you?”

“You could say that.” The glass was as cool as a sheet of water through my clothes. I was too tired to stop myself crying, and I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand in angry motions.

“What did he do?” His voice was curious, but no more so than it had been before, as if it were all one and the same to him. And maybe it was. 

I said, “Tell me about Maethwyn.”

“Tell me what he did to you.”

“Was she fair, like you, or darker, like me? What did her voice sound like?”

“It’s no business of yours, is it?”

“Well, my business is none of yours, either.”

“You started to tell me, though.” Apparently there were rules for this sort of thing. 

I put my forehead against my knees and waited, and then I murmured a word or two; choked on them, really.

“What was that?”

“I said, he forced me.”

The man from Rohan said nothing.

“I mean, I didn’t want to—” I went on. I was suddenly panicked, as if this had somehow turned into an act of self-preservation. “I didn’t even—”

He held up a hand. “I know what it means. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be. You don’t know me.”

“I do, a little.”

I shook my head. “What happened to you was worse. Very much worse.”

“This was one of your own men? From your country?”

“It was worse, what happened to you,” I persisted.

“Was it one of your men?” 

“Yes.” One of Gondor’s men, I thought. None of them were mine. “Would it be better if it were one of yours, then?”

He licked his lips and shrugged. “No.” He shifted the cushion beneath the remains of his leg. I turned my head away; there was something in his eyes I didn’t like. “Where’s your father?” he asked.

“Dead.”

“Brothers?”

“One, and he’s a child. He went to the coast with my mother.”

“Don’t you have anyone to protect you?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“That’s a shame,” he murmured. “Pretty girl like you.”

“I’m not pretty.” I wiped my eyes against my sleeve. “Would it be better if I were ugly?”

“No. I meant…”

We were both quiet for a while. I was afraid for a few moments that someone might pass by and see us like this, him staring away, and me weeping like a fool, neither of us supposed to be perched up here in the first place. I suppose that if you had had a mind to, you might have constructed a fine complicated story about the two of us that was not true at all.

After a while, he said, “I want to go back, now.” I slid off the ledge to help him, folding his arm about my shoulders once more.

“She was fair, like me,” he said as we made our way back to his section of the wards. “And tall. She had a low voice, but sweet. After—I looked for her, but I couldn’t find her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well—it’s done, now.”

“No, it isn’t,” I said.

***

I was setting out the wet linens to dry on the long wooden racks, when Fíriel came and touched my shoulder.

“You’re done,” she said. “You’re off. Go and get some sleep.”

I said nothing. The water from the dripping cloths was pooling at my feet, and Fíriel took the damp bedding from my hands.

“Go. I told the Warden you were worn out and you needed a few days for your strength to return. He didn’t ask me any questions. He said it was fine.”

I wiped my palms on my smock and nodded.

“There’s a good girl,” she said, and she seemed to relax just a bit in her back and shoulders so that the corner of one of the sheets touched the stones of the floor. She lifted it again and spread it over the racks, being careful not to bunch the fabric anywhere so that it would dry smoothly.

***

When I passed through South Ward it became clear that something was happening. Murmurs about the First Circle were going around, staff members were massing in small knots between the rows of beds, and it seemed as though everyone were snapping into the same urgency that had been their air during the Siege.

“What’s all this?” someone asked.

Nauthir, one of the older surgeons accosted me and a few of the other girls. “Just when we thought it was—” he shook his head. “We’ve just got word, two of the guardhouses and a great piece of the wall on the First Circle have collapsed; they’d taken too much damage during the Siege, though apparently they’d been thought safe enough until now. There were a great many men on those walls and beneath them and the Warden has orders for everyone. You’ll all go to one of the matrons in the atrium and get your instructions.”

The other girls exchanged a glance and hurried off, but I hesitated. Fíriel had said that the Warden had removed me from the rotations. He had removed me, and yet it seemed like such a cumbersome thing to try to explain now. I was tired and my head ached, but having to explain always seemed to make things so much more difficult.

I thought of the boy from Rohan, and of Maethwyn, and his niece, and their wrecked pathetic village that was now only a smear of ash on the plains. I thought of my own sleepless nights and my own nightmares. I had nothing better to do.

“Is there a problem, miss?” Nauthir was asking me.

“No—no, sir.”

“Then report for your orders with all haste, please.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and I rushed away to where the others had gone.

***

When I had gone down to the Second Circle to help clear away the wounded and the corpses, I had scarcely recognized it because the cobblestones had been strewn with bodies and blood. And now I found that I did not recognize the First Circle at all; houses and buildings were gutted shells of themselves and the old high walls had crumbled and shifted at perilous angles, as if reaching towards one another. Fallen stones formed piles and tunnels; there was no clear place to stand, and my shoes were soon coated in ashes and dust. The most frightening thing about it all was that it looked as though nothing had ever lived there recently, as if it were some ancient desolation that we had only just discovered. Everything smelled of smoke, and then I remembered the tall funeral pyres that they had began to light and feed just after the end of the last battle.

A long section of the high walls and part of the gate was gone; there was only a gash and a pile of cracked stones and splintered wood, rising out of the ground. The guardhouses had been crushed, their walls buckled in like a row of broken backs. If Mordor came to Minas Tirith a second time, then surely there would be no siege at all; even I could see that.

Several workers from the Houses were already there, and the largest group was gathered around where the first guardhouse had once been. One of the other women saw me and motioned me over. She was tending to a man in Guardsman’s livery who was sitting on the chalky ground, a thick line of blood running down one side of his head as if it had been painted there.

“Talk to this one,” she said to me. “Make sure he doesn’t move yet.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are you all right, dear?”

I nodded and she said, “All right,” and then she got up and moved on. The air was full of the sounds of orders, moans, coughing, the smell of dust and panic. I took a clean cloth from my pocket and pressed it to the man’s face, feeling for the damage with the fingers of my other hand. His hair was sticky and smelled of iron. He looked like all the others; they all looked rather the same, in the end.

“About a dozen,” he said. He was blinking slowly as if he had just woken up.

“A dozen what?”

“Men. Right under the guardhouse when it all came down. I saw it, you know. I got the least of it.”

“I heard.”

“Poor wretches,” he said. He blinked again and then shut his eyes and I could feel him grow heavier against me. I made myself close my hand around the point of his shoulder; he was warm, at the very least.

“Wake up,” I said. “What’s your name?”

He opened his eyes. “Sorry. I thought it would go the other way.”

“What do you mean?” I took the cloth away and took out another one, and my hands were not as steady as they might have been.

“I thought…during the Siege, I thought that Mordor would make the City crumble from the top down, somehow. But now it’s all going from the ground up, isn’t it?”

“What’s your name?”

We kept talking and he stayed awake, but he would not tell me his name. I wondered if he remembered it.

***

There was blood and stone and dust, and there was man after man to tend to; the pain and the tiredness swiftly returned to me after the first shock of seeing the ruined gate, and the noise and the openness of the place made me dizzy and anxious. Fíriel was right, I thought, I should have stayed up in the Houses. I sat down on a large piece of stone and wound the cloth of my smock tightly around both of my hands as if trying to stanch a wound of my own. I shut my eyes and different voices rang in my ears.

“What are you doing here?” I looked up and Valacar was standing over me.

I started. “What about you?” I retorted. It was the only thing I could think to say.

“They’ve asked for all free hands. I suppose I’m only able to be dismissed when I’m truly not needed.”

“I…All free hands,” I said, lifting my own from the folds of my smock.

He crouched so that our eyes were on the same level. “Well, you’ve not been well.”

“What doesn’t Fíriel tell you?”

“Oh, a great many things, I’m sure. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said, and I got up from my seat and stepped away from him through the dust. He got up and moved after me; I was vaguely, strangely satisfied to see that there was something startled about his movements, as if he were having trouble keeping me in his sights.

There was a large group of people clustered about a huge section of rubble near what used to be the gatehouse. Many of the men were working to clear away some of the stones, but it looked to be slow going.

“Look there,” one of the other women said to me, catching me lightly by the sleeve. “They think there are still some men beneath all of that, two or three, perhaps.”

“They must be dead.”

“We don’t know.”

“All of you stand aside if you’re not helping here, then,” one of the young men said, motioning us back. His face was impassive but he seemed to be taking us in with his eyes, each of us in turn, as if he wanted a moment to be sure that we were actually there.

“I’ll be wanted elsewhere, I suppose,” murmured the woman; none of us were really accustomed to being ordered about by anyone but the Warden. She walked away, but I found myself rooted to the spot, my kit bag clutched in my fist. The men were hard at work with their sleeves pushed back and their arms coated in dust, shouting cautions to one another, but I couldn’t see the use of any of it, and perhaps they couldn’t, either. The wreckage seemed as solid and hopeless as something that had been built on purpose. 

There seemed to be no real hierarchy of commands. “…never clear it away in time…” I heard a fair-haired Rohirric man say. He was speaking to a Minas Tirith man in captain’s dress.

And then Valacar was beside me once more. “You look tired,” he said to me. “Why don’t you go back up to the Houses?”

“Hush,” I said.

“…not all the way over,” the captain was replying. His left palm was pressed against his forehead while he described figures in the air with his right hand. “I saw it as it went, the roof isn’t all the way in…”

“There’s a clearing here,” someone called. A section of the rubble shifted and collapsed as though it were a creature settling down for a rest. The sound was like the slow cracking of bones. Pebbles tumbled and rolled to the ground and a few of them touched the toes of my shoes like a threat. “Take care!” someone else shouted. “Don’t be foolish.”

“Stand further back, at least,” said Valacar, taking me by the elbow. He took a step back and his grip tightened and I gasped a protest; then his hand dropped away altogether. He stood with his arms folded across his chest. Opposite from us, conferring with the captain and the Rohirric man, was Lord Aradîr. I glanced over at Valacar, but his face was without expression; if anything, his features were a bit slack, as if had given up on something.

“Come around,” someone was calling. “Surgeons, as well, if there are any.” 

“There’s a man under the guardhouse, perhaps two,” the captain was saying to me and Valacar and a few of the other healers who had gathered. Aradîr was still standing beside the captain; he did not look at any of us directly. “It’s not impossible that they’re still alive,” the captain continued, and here he looked at Valacar, as if he possessed some extra knowledge by virtue of his grey surgeon’s coat. Valacar returned his glance but said nothing. “One of the walls may have gone down intact. We’ve cleared a space through the stones…”

“Narrow,” one of the other men broke in, “but if we can go through without upsetting it…”

Valacar cleared his throat. “Forgive me; but even if they’re indeed alive, we’ve no idea if they can be safely moved out. Might it be better to wait until all of it can be shifted?” The wreckage seemed to settle a few feet under its own weight, and a stone about the size of an infant tumbled from the heap, as if in reply to him.

“Won’t happen anytime soon…” someone else put in.

“Half the men in my company were lost to Mordor,” said the man who had interrupted the captain, now glaring at Valacar, “I’ll not see anyone else lost to anything so needless as this…”

“Calm yourself,” said one of the other men. Lord Aradir was saying nothing; his eyes simply moved from one speaker to the next.

“…never seen anything like this…” one of the other girls said, and someone else was saying, “Why have they brought the women down here?”

The voices blended together, and my gaze wandered over to the spaces between the stones, the slender gaps and the shadows between them. I looked back at the tired, ragged company that had assembled itself here, and I saw the first young man looking at me, the one who had first asked me to move away. I stared back at him. Little one, I thought. I was exhausted and bruised, as if the world had done nothing but batter me for the past several days. But for a moment I felt as though the world might be drawing me into its confidences for once, laying a part of itself bare. And here was something I could do. 

“I can go in,” I said. The arguments went on, but the captain and Aradîr were now glancing at me. “I can go and try to have a look inside,” I continued. “I’m small enough so that I won’t upset anything.” 

It was quiet for a moment and then Valacar leaned in towards me. “A word, please,” he said, and he took me by the arm and pulled me aside, some distance away from the crowd. I wrenched my arm from his grip with as much force as I could muster. 

“You are going back to the Houses, right now,” he said to me.

I stared back at him and said nothing.

“You could be very badly hurt, like those men. You could be killed.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Why does it matter to you, anyhow?” He put out an arm, an unusually broad gesture for him, as if to encompass the whole scene before us.

“Why doesn’t it matter to you?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with these men,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “They’re soldiers. They should be able to tell a wise risk from a foolish one. They should be able to leave a lost cause without bringing others into it.”

I stared past his shoulder at the mound of broken stones; unlike that picture on the Fifth Circle, it was no clearer at a greater distance. “Isn’t it all sort of a lost cause, at this point?”

“Very well, perhaps it is. And we can talk about that later. For now—”

“Stop trying to look after me. You needn’t bother yourself.”

He took a step closer to me so that he could lower his voice. “Then why did you come to my room the other day, if you didn’t want looking after?”

I didn’t have an answer to that.

“Why shouldn’t I look out for you?” he persisted.

“Because you don’t have to. We’re not kin. I’m nothing to you.” And then I remembered the day when I had come to his surgery room with the clean linens to tell him about my meeting with Aradîr, and I had tossed my basket in the air and Valacar had laughed, and I was pleased that he had. That was more than nothing, though I couldn’t be sure of what it amounted to. And now that seemed ages ago. Now we were the keepers of one another’s secrets, as if we had been crammed together into a space with very little air. And I wanted to be rid of it all, rid of the way one thing inevitably wound into another as if it were all spun out of a single tangled thread.

“What if I want to look out for you?” he said. “You’re owed that much, at least. You’re owed something.”

I thought of that day in the surgery with the dying man, when Valacar had sent me out to the gardens. I hadn’t asked for any of that day, or anything that had come out of it. I thought of what he had told me about what had gone on between him and Aradîr, all these things that made me want to shudder if I dwelled on them for too long.

“Why can’t you…” I trailed off, trying to think of just what I wanted to say.

“Why can’t I what?” he asked.

“Why can’t you do what you’re supposed to do? Just like everyone else?”

“What makes you think everyone else does what they’re supposed to?”

“That’s not the point. It would be so much easier for you, with everything, if you just…kept to yourself.”

“I suppose that’s what you’re doing, now? Keeping to yourself? Staying out of trouble?”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I can tell you what to do because I am many years older than you are, and I have had much more time to make mistakes than you ever have. And I don’t believe you’re thinking clearly. So please go back up to the Sixth Circle.”

“I’m all right,” I murmured.

“You’re not.” He put his hands on my arms, just below my shoulders. “You don’t eat. You don’t sleep.”

“Stop it.”

“Not until you listen to me.” His grip tightened a little. “Don’t let yourself become a danger to others, as well as to yourself.”

“Stop it!”

We both stepped apart from one another. He looked surprised, and he had his hands slightly forwards, palms out, the type of gesture you might make to show that you are at a loss for something: weapons, or coins, or words. My heart was racing painfully beneath my ribs. He had shaken me, once, hard, and I had struck him across the face.

“Are you all right?” asked another voice, and we both turned to look. Although he had been standing in conference with the captain a few moments ago, Lord Aradîr was now a few feet away.

“Well?” he said, glancing at me. I nodded. Valacar said nothing. “Should I remind you that this girl is in no way under your orders?” Aradîr said, turning towards him.

“Nor is she under yours,” Valacar replied, his voice lower now. “The Warden’s excused her from the rotations.”

“He did the same for you, as I recall.” He turned to me before Valacar could reply. “And how old are you, good lady?” Though I had the feeling he already knew.

“Nineteen, sir.”

He nodded. “More than old enough to choose your own course,” he said, though he seemed to be speaking more to Valacar than to me. “The captain would like to know if your offer still stands.”

“Aradîr—” Valacar began.

“What did you say?”

Valacar took a deep breath, and then said, “Sir,” and the corner of his mouth tightened briefly in something that could have been either a smirk or a grimace, the sort of face you might make to yourself when you remember something particularly regrettable that you’ve done. “Have you heard anything I said? She’s tired out. She shouldn’t be here at all.”

“She looks well enough to me.” 

“Forgive me, sir, but I don’t believe you were appointed to discern who is well and who’s not. That would be the Warden’s duty. And mine.”

“Duties that you’ve forfeited, Valacar.”

“How?”

“You know very well.”

“No. Tell me how.”

“I’m sure you know that you’re not to speak to your superiors in this—”

“Please tell me. Sir.”

“As was made quite clear to you before, for breaches of City law and of the Healer’s—”

“On what proof?” Valacar’s hands were down at his sides, as if he believed he’d already been defeated, as if he’d taken one step too far and little cared how much farther he went, how much more irretrievable he could make himself. Aradîr looked tired, but his voice was still as calm and cordial as it had been that day when he’d greeted me in his offices and made me recite my old lessons for him.

“The records from the dispensary clearly show that—”

“The records show nothing.”

Aradîr turned to me again. “Please run and inform the captain that—”

“And will you please leave her out of this?” Valacar demanded.

I turned and saw that the captain was making his way over to where we were, looking none too patient with us.

“That was my intent,” said Aradîr. “You may be excused, Valacar,” he added quietly.

Valacar crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing.

“You may go, now,” Aradîr said, and his voice was a half-tone lower. “On your own, or if you insist—”

“My lord,” said the captain. “What have you decided?”

“First, Captain,” began Aradîr, looking at Valacar, “if you might—”

“If you might let me go in.” All three men looked at me. It took me a moment to recognize the voice as my own. “Lord Aradîr’s agreed to let me go in to the wreckage to see if there’s anything that can be done.”

Aradîr glanced at me. “Indeed,” he said, looking at the captain once more, “and if you could please see to it that this man—”

“He’s going to help me,” I broke in once more, the words tumbling out one after the other. “He needs to—he’s the best at seeing me through these things, if—if there’s something I don’t understand. He has to.”

“Very well, come along, then.” The captain had already turned away and was walking back towards the wreckage and the small crowd, the speed at which he moved suggesting that he cared little for the strange, slow ways of these healers.

Aradîr didn’t move. “Captain,” he began, though he was now looking at me. I stared back at him; there was no expression on his face that I could read.

“Yes?” The captain barely glanced over his shoulder.

“I’ll…have a word with you afterwards, please.” Aradîr glanced at Valacar, and then back at me, his words winding in upon themselves now that we were all faced again with the massive weight of the wrecked circle. The anger seemed to have gone out of him. Instead he just shook his head, looking vaguely embarrassed.

“Very well,” said the captain, whose back was to us again.

“You can thank me,” I whispered to Valacar as we followed the captain back towards the guardhouse. “I just helped you.”

“I’d rather you’d just helped yourself. You don’t have to do it, you know.” He looked at me then, and sighed, shaking his head. 

And people were watching, now. I glanced up once and then refused to look again as I fastened my kit bag tightly at my waist.

“…and you’ll stop straightaway if something doesn’t feel right to you,” the captain was telling me. “Because we’re usually right about these things, aren’t we?” He didn’t seem to be asking for agreement from anyone in particular. None of it felt right even now, but I nodded.

Someone said my name. Valacar was standing next to me again, and he said, “Tuck up your sleeves. Like this. So they won’t catch.” The bruises were still on my wrists, but now they looked as though they could have been smears of grime, like everyone now wore. “And thank you, anyhow,” he whispered into my ear.

The space they’d cleared was just a narrow shadow between a curved stone fragment and a dark piece of wood whose weathered surface had now gone to splinters. I held my breath and climbed in.

***

Beneath the stones everything was black, like one dark room beyond another. I didn’t move. The dust was thick in the air, on the ground and filtering down from above and I thought I could feel myself choking on it. I was hunched over on hands and knees and I felt tiny sharp fragments sticking in the creases of my palms and beneath my fingernails, and I wondered if more would stick in my throat and my nose.

I waited and the darkness resolved itself into shapes, black against black. Something unbroken slanted above me and ahead of me. The men had been right—one of the walls had gone down intact. There was space inside the wreckage. I went forward, gingerly—one palm, then the other, one knee, then the other. For each movement I had to wait and blink until I had convinced myself that my eyes had grown used to this new pocket of shadow, and I remembered what Ioreth had once told me, what I had then told Beren—that because we had spent our childhoods in Minas Tirith, we had grown more accustomed to the dimness and the clouded horizon, the lack of light.

The passage seemed to narrow to just the width of my shoulders. I felt in front of me with my fingers for traces of blood or anything human. I did not want to be surprised. I shifted around a column of stone that jutted to my left, and then my right arm caught on something sharp before I knew it, and I could feel it all shuddering and shifting around me. A few small rocks struck my shoulder, then something that might have been a metal bolt or a hinge. I tried to coil more tightly into myself, to be smaller inside my own clothes and my skin, but I had already shrunk myself down as much as I could. There was nowhere to retreat to. I could have backed out then, backed out as slowly and gingerly as I had come in, and no one would have thought any worse of me, or at least they would not have said as much, but for some reason I chose not to. There was nothing to do but inch forward.

The wooden wall slanted so low now that it brushed my back. The soft part of my fingers touched stone and I groped my way forward, listening to my own breathing. I thought of my mother exploring the curving alleyways of the Fifth Circle when she was a girl, trailing her hands along the walls; back then, the Siege had only been a distant shadow looming on the horizon. Marriage and a daughter and a son, a dead sister and an inherited nephew and a refugee camp somewhere on the coast had probably never even crossed her mind. I wondered if she had ever been afraid, when she was my age.

My skirts and my sleeves were caked with dust and I could taste the grit and the chalk in my mouth, and I wondered, too, for a moment, if this was what dying was like, crawling into a smaller space and then a smaller, picking up heaviness. I wondered if Valacar’s soldier, the one who had lain gutted and bleeding on the table in the surgery that day, had known what was happening. If he would have forgiven Valacar (or forgiven me, for that matter), or even thanked him. 

_Was it one of your own men?_ the man from Rohan had asked me as we huddled on the ledge by the window. And now as I tried to see an arm’s length ahead of me and as I tried to shake the dust from my eyelashes, I realized that the men who were ours weren’t so by the simple facts of flags and colors; that would be too easy. The men who were ours were the ones who we saved or lost, the ones whose bedsides we lingered at, the ones who we cut and stitched and soothed, the ones whose blood stained our clothing and stuck beneath our fingernails. So Tarondor was mine, I thought. And Valacar’s man—he was mine, as well, at least in part. And a great many others, whether from Minas Tirith or Ithilien or Edoras or other place. Something else shifted and the stones grated against the wood, and it sounded like a moan in my ears.

The space opened slightly, and I thought I could see a few fingers of light filtering through gaps in the rubble overhead. And then the back of my wrist touched something soft.

I caught my breath. My fingers searched the ground. Stones creaked somewhere above and to my right. I thought I could smell blood, or metal, or both, and something else, as well, something that I could not place. I touched one wrist, and then another, and then a throat and a shoulder seemed to emerge before me, as if the wreckage were growing flesh on its own. I was trying to string the scene together, and my hands were clutching at fragments and endings in the darkness, and then all at once the fear came roaring back to me and I stopped everything. The walls closed in and I couldn’t move. I had crawled into a tomb, I thought, and dying amongst death would be far worse than dying here by myself, and the walls seemed to shift in towards me, the dark shapes swirling before my eyes and then behind my eyelids when I shut them. My mouth and throat were dry and my stomach hurt, and I wanted to be far away, the wish that I had first had on that night when I had left the kitchens and walked alone into the rain.

And then I took another breath, and then another. I opened my eyes. In my mind I divided up my choices and parcelled them into corners. I took balances and made calculations; I had been a stretcher-bearer like everyone else and I knew the exact weight of a dying soldier. The man lying nearest me made a noise. I touched his wrist again, touched his arms and his legs. I took another breath. I knew what I had to do.

I backed out of the crawlspace even more slowly than I had gone in. When I ducked out and stood up the light stung my eyes.

“Well?” said Lord Aradîr, at the same time that the captain said, “Did you find anything?” I shook the dust from my hands. The soldiers and healers who had gathered about seemed to ask the same questions with their eyes. Valacar stepped closer to me, not bothering to disguise his relief.

I said, “There are two men inside. One is alive and one isn’t. If you widen the entryway I think I can bring him out—the live one.”

“Good girl,” murmured the captain. 

The relief had gone from Valacar’s face. Aradîr glanced at the captain but said nothing.

“His right arm is pinned beneath a piece of stone that I can’t move,” I continued. “It’s crushed. I’ll need to take it off above the elbow.”

“And you think you can do that?” the captain asked. “Do that, and bring him out quickly enough?”

I nodded. “Valacar can help, with—after that.”

“No, I won’t,” said Valacar, drawing me aside. “Because you’re not going back in.”

“I can do it. I know how.”

“It’s not just the amputation. You could barely get in, yourself; how are you going to bring a grown man out with you?”

“I can do it.”

“ _How_?” He lifted his hands as if he were going to touch me again, and just as quickly he dropped them back at his sides. 

“There’s enough space.”

“Are you very sure?” the captain asked me.

“Yes.”

“And the arm?” Valacar persisted. “Are you sure it needs to come off?”

I nodded.

“You’re certain of this?” Aradîr said.

I said, “I need to take it off.”

Valacar and the captain exchanged glances, and then Valacar nodded and knelt to take his instruments out of their cases.

***

On the way back inside, something sharp scraped against my ankle where my skirts had bunched up. I touched the skin and held my fingers there for a moment; I was bleeding, but there was nothing to be done for it now. I didn’t mind.

For a moment the tunnel seemed wider than it had when I had first gone through, as if objects in the world had shifted ever so slightly to accommodate me. I was almost surprised that the men were still there; I suppose that a part of me had expected them to vanish like visions in a children’s story, shades put up to fool the hero. But they were there, and the one was still alive.

I touched him and he stirred slowly; it was like watching a thing underwater or perhaps through a pane of heavy glass. I had no pain-draughts with me; I thought I wouldn’t need them, and anyway there were probably no more to be had.

I shifted the thin cloth bundle over to my side, which was difficult because it was stiff, without any give. The fabric on his sleeve tore easily enough. He stirred again when I knotted a strip of cloth on his arm beneath his shoulder, tightly, like my mother had taught me.

“Hush,” I said, and I went to work.

At the first cut he jerked and made a noise in the back of his throat. I was stronger, now, stronger than I had been before, and I could keep him still. I couldn’t hesitate, I knew; after the first cut there can be no room left for doubts, but only speed and work. The smell of blood filled my nose and my mouth. Valacar had always kept his saws the sharpest of any surgeon, or at least I thought so; I thought of him in his little rooms among his knives and his towels and his tables, and suddenly I was overtaken by gratefulness, for him and for everyone. It seemed like only a few strokes before I had sunk down to the bone. It was like a destination, like coming halfway home.

I stanched the blood, held the cloth tight as I switched saws. There was more noise, now. His eyes may have been open; I couldn’t tell and I didn’t dare let my gaze travel from my work. But I talked to him. I made my voice low and soft, as soft as you could want a mother’s or a sweetheart’s voice to be, and I talked to him.

I told him that in time the end of the bone would scar itself over, that the flesh would knit itself back together. I told him that there was nothing to fear because the sun would rise again and again, keep dragging itself over the horizon regardless of our own wishes, until it came time for us to die, that this was a thing that could be counted on. And that certain things would never stop happening until Mordor tore through the skeleton of our gates, that things had always happened. That we could make them happen, like Beren had said to me, or least we might make ourselves believe that we could. Children would be born, and tiny dots of villages would be burnt to bone and ash. And people would get married, and they would nurture secrets and keep them, and people would betray one another. And that we would all make lives for ourselves out of the tiny spaces that were given to us.

By the time I had gone all the way through the bone, he was quiet beneath my hands. There, I said. That’s all right. That’s done, then.

And once that was over, it was easier, like walking downhill. I felt my way through the blood and the skin as if this was the one thing I had been meant to do all of my life. The last thing that was keeping him pinned on the spot was a fragment of his sleeve. I had already wrapped up Valacar’s saws. But I had one more knife, tucked away in my own kit bag; the knife that the grey-haired captain had pressed on me, the knife that the young villageless man from Rohan had said was for no one but me. As if he was showing me some sort of unexpected gift; and perhaps he had, in the end. I drew it out and carefully cut away at the very last of the trapped man, and then we were both free to go.

***

I turned him around inch by inch in the narrow space and brought him out into the daylight; what remained of his arm was wrapped up tightly, and I remember that I held him mostly by his shoulders, that I pulled him mostly by the fabric around his collar and the edges of his shirt, and that pieces of stone leaned in and collapsed behind us, as if confirming the finality of it all. I remember thinking what a lucky thing it was that only one of the men in the wreckage had been alive, and not both of them; for what could I possibly have done with two to worry about?

I brought him out and he lay on his back on the cobblestones of the First Circle, and then I could finally stand apart from him and look into his eyes. They were pale and still like the surface of a reflecting pool. He stared back at me.

Valacar was beside him right away as he said he would be, needle and thread in hand. I sat down. A few of the men came and smiled at me and patted my shoulders, saying, Well done and good work.

“That was very good,” Lord Aradîr said quietly. We both watched Valacar work; he was almost finished. “You’re a brave girl.”

“Thank you, sir.” I paused. “I hope you don’t mind it.”

“What would I mind?”

“It was against the Healer’s Canon. For me to use the knives. Sir.”

He glanced at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. I was covered in blood and dust. “Of course,” he said, “we can make short-term allowances under certain circumstances, can we not?” He glanced over at Valacar; did not seem to be waiting for a reply from me. “Be well,” he said. “Take care that you have some rest.” He got up and walked away as Valacar was tying off his last stitch.

***

They took the man up to the Houses along with the others from the First Circle who could now be moved. As far as we could tell, the collapse had claimed seven men, six from Gondor and the last from Rohan.

When Valacar found me I was back up on the Sixth Circle, sitting in the corner of one of the garden balconies. 

“Valar,” he said when he saw me, “come and wash up.” I was still wearing my smock from earlier in the day.

“I’m sorry I hit you.”

He smiled faintly. “It’s all right. I deserved it; I shouldn’t have shaken you like that.”

“What’s going to happen to you?” I asked. 

“I don’t know.” He didn’t speak for a long time. “Come inside” he said.

I nodded but I felt too heavy to move for the moment. It didn’t seem so very urgent.

“What’s wrong?” he asked me.

“Nothing.”

He got up and walked away and returned a few minutes later with a basin of water. He sat on the bench beside me and put the basin between us.

“Here,” he said. “Wash your hands.”

The water was cool. I stared at my fingers, but didn’t move. They looked like things that had nothing to do with me.

In the Houses, washing our hands is the very first thing we are taught to do. As little girls and boys, before we ever make a single cut or place a stitch, before we fold a single towel or tear a bandage or watch someone die in front of us, we wash our hands.

“Please,” said Valacar. I still did nothing, and so he reached across the basin and pushed my sleeves up from my wrists. He turned my hands palms-up, where the blood was caked thick in the creases in my skin. The water clouded pink.

“I was impressed with the amputation,” he said, looking down. “It was very clean.”

“It was hard,” I said, “in the dark.”

“I can’t imagine,” he said. He had a small flat stone in one hand and he pushed it gently between my fingers, the way my mother had taught me. He was quiet while he worked on my left hand, but he spoke again, very quietly, as he started on my right, still without looking me in the eye.

“I’ve seen crush wounds before. That didn’t look like the end of one to me.”

I said nothing. He was going underneath my fingernails with the narrow end of the stone, one at a time, the way all the surgeons learn to do. They were getting too long and I needed to trim them. The water swirled pink and red.

“It was dark, as you said,” he continued. “Not enough space or light. Anyone could have made a mistake. You brought him out alive, and that’s what matters.”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t a mistake. I needed to take the arm off.” I stared at him, bent over the basin as if he were at work on something important, until he looked up at again.

“All right,” he said.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” I repeated. I lifted my hands from the water. They felt as soft as a child’s, as if they were new again.

Valacar nodded. He stood up from the bench and took the basin with him.

“You did well. And thank you, again.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, watching him walk away. My legs felt unsteady as I stood up, and I wondered if I should trust them right now. I leaned over the railings and stared out at the lower circles.

Later the rest of the wreckage would come down, unable to keep itself at such heights; only then could the rebuilding begin in earnest. It would take years until it was all as it was before, and even then it there would be something different about it, something that you couldn’t quite put into words.

And just a few days later the man that I had pulled from the wreckage, the man whose blood was still on my smock and my dress, would die. From the shock of it all, most likely, Ioreth would explain to me when she gave me the news. The weight and the falling and the shock of it all—there are some things that a body can’t manage on it’s own, not so unusual in the end. But you did well, my dear—you did your best by him, though I’m sorry it came to this.

But standing there on the balcony, I didn’t know any of this. The gardens were quiet and there was a hint of warmth on the breeze, and I closed my eyes for a long time. My shoulders went slack, as if something had gone out of me, something that had kept me coiled together. Then I opened my eyes and remembered the little carved figure in my kit bag. I had found it, felt the edge of it over the top of his shirt pocket along with the same carving knife that he had held against my neck in the alley in the rain. I took it out now, let it lay on my open palm. Like everything else it was smeared with blood. I stared at the wooden man for a few moments. It looked like a dead thing in my hand, and then I closed my fingers around it and tossed it over the edge.


	17. Gone (Interlude)

A few things to consider. Not necessarily in this order.

***

It’s always dim in the bedchamber, at least when he’s there, because the drapes are never open. The window hangings are made of cloth so heavy and dark that they nearly defeat themselves, because simply to look at them would be to assume that they were made for the sole purpose of concealing indiscretion.

Or at least the younger man thinks so, staring at the fabric from the inside. It’s quiet enough that he can hear his own slow breathing, hear his companion shifting on the blankets beside him.

“What are you thinking?” the older man asks.

Valacar takes his gaze away from the window, looks over at him.

“I met your wife. Yesterday, by the fountain.”

A pause. “Pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She misses the coast.”

“Ah. She’s one of your people. I’d almost forgotten.”

Valacar lies back on the bed, stretches and folds his wrists on top of his head, thinks about how she looked like so many people do upon coming inland from Amroth: still dark from the coastal sun, a vaguely shocked look in her eyes. Expectant. “No, you didn’t,” he says. “You don’t forget anything.”

“I said, almost.”

“I wanted to be a sailor like my cousins, you know, because I lived so near the shore. I wanted to be buried at sea.”

“You’d be devoured by fish, I’d imagine.”

Valacar closes his eyes and shrugs. He is thin and listless and guilty. “What would I care? I’d be dead.”

“If you didn’t care, then why would you want to be buried at sea in the first place?” And before Valacar can answer, Aradîr leans in and kisses his eyelids, the bridge of his nose. Tender but careless. Valacar is nearing twenty-one and already picking up regrets with every step he takes. He is listless and guilty and happy, and he cannot see any other way to do things.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “Never mind.”

***

Sixteen years later, Mordor smokes and fumes before them, and Beren marches with the others. The hours slide together and he watches the back of the man in front of him and for the first time he truly begins to doubt: to doubt his captain, to doubt himself, even to doubt this man who calls himself their king, and above all this fool’s errand they’ve been set upon. Doubt that he fights, that he chokes down every morning with his rations, but that’s there all the same. They keep moving and the world folds into night.

“Are you all right?” Laeron asks, walking beside him.

“Fine,” says Beren. “Fine. You?”

“I’m all right,” he replies, and in spite of everything, Beren doesn’t doubt him. Laeron is staring ahead, not at the man in front of him, but up and into the distance, as if he’s seen something perched on the horizon. Staring up and ahead, waiting for whatever it is that comes next.

***

And many miles away, in the city they’ve left behind, a soldier lies dying, far from home. Nothing special about that. Women in blue move around him and at times there’s only this strange half-light and the rustle of their skirts as he drifts in and out of this place. His arm still hurts, or at least the part of it that’s gone.

And for a moment he remembers the weight of a woman’s fingers in his, so many years ago when his hands were still fit to hold anyone. Before he grew unreachable, before he began to waste and wear away, piece by piece. He almost remembers the light on her hair, like something from a dream. But then it’s gone, like everything else.

***

The wheels turn, and history groans into place: three figures stand high above the flames in the deep-shadowed mountain, and then one of them tumbles. The Ring goes into the fire, and that is the end of that story. 

You may close the book if you are so inclined.

***

And years after that, a woman sits in a garden, delivered to peacetime. The sky is clear and the breeze stirs her skirts and for the moment she is not thinking about anything extraordinary. A small worn book lies closed in her lap. A little dark-haired girl, bored with playing, runs to her, clambers up to sit beside her on the bench.

“Tell me a story, Mama.”

The woman sets aside her book and cannot help but think, as she does from time to time, that she has both too many stories and too few. At times she suspects that the weight that pins down her words is an absence and not a presence, the sharp edges of loss and disappointment.

“Which story, my dear one?”

But now the weight in her lap is that of her daughter, warm and bird-light, and she realizes that the sound she is now hearing is her own voice, no different from the last time she spoke, and no different from the time before that. Just another part of the sound the world makes, the way it creaks on when no one is really listening to it.


	18. Lighter

The next morning I found myself sitting beneath the high curved ceiling when one of the messenger boys came by.

“Hello,” I said. “How are you, today?”

“I’m tired,” he said. He sat down beside me; he was nearly as tall as I was, now. “Much the same as everyone, I suppose.”

“Yes, much the same. I’m tired, too.”

“I heard that you saved that man the other day, when the Gate and everything came down.”

“I brought him out.”

“You must be terribly brave. Especially for a girl.”

“No more brave than you, for staying on with your father.”

He grew quiet and he scuffed his foot back forth on the stone floor for a moment, and then he was still.

“It’s been nearly a week, can you imagine?” he said. “It seems more like seven years have gone by.”

“You’re not alone in saying that.”

“My father went forth with the King, you know.”

“I know.”

“And my uncle Iorlas. Do you know him?”

“I’ve met him.”

“When do you suppose they’ll return?”

“Quite soon, I hope.”

Another pause, and then: “Do you suppose they’ll return, at all?”

“Of course they will,” I said.

He regarded me. “That’s what everyone says.” It might have been an accusation.

“And what is that supposed to mean, Master Bergil?”

“It means what I said. That that’s just what everyone says to me.”

For a moment I thought I saw the young man that he would soon be, if indeed his father and uncle and the King did return. Clear-eyed and generous, and perhaps not the sort of person who answered children without thinking. For most of us, comforting a child was as natural as breathing, even if the things we said went against our truer feelings. After all, I was no longer a girl myself, anymore, but a grown-up young lady, and that was all part of the bargain.

 

***

There were foreigners in Minas Tirith in those days, men from much further away than Rohan. They had surrendered themselves and they were prisoners. Mostly they were kept to themselves and out of the Houses, save for the very ill or gravely wounded among them. Even before the siege had begun, there were all manner of rumors going about the Sixth Circle as to what sort of men these were, men that would willingly follow Mordor into battle. There were reports of skin that was blacker than jet and eyes that glowed yellow and red like embers. It was murmured that some of these southerners had teeth that were pointed like animals’ teeth, and that they spat every word of their language like a curse.

The first of these men that I ever saw was lying in the South Ward, and I could tell right away that he was not from our lands. His skin was far from pitch-colored, but he was dark, darker than the most weather-beaten sailors who used to come up to the City after a summer at sea. His face had a different shape than those of most of our people; rounder about the jaw, sharper around the nose. He caught me staring and lifted his head to return the look.

One of our men was sitting at his bedside, perhaps to keep watch over him while he was away from the others, though the prisoner lay still.

“A word, Miss,” the Gondorian said, beckoning me over. There were sharp gathers of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and he wore the blue livery of the Amroth men. I nodded at him but as I came near I still could not help looking at the other man. There was a broad bandage wrapped over his left shoulder and he looked feverish, but his eyes were well alive. They were neither red nor yellow, but dark brown, darker than his skin, and his gaze followed me. I wondered if I ought to be afraid of him.

“Might you see that this man gets a fresh dressing soon?” the Amroth man asked. “I asked another young lady well near an hour ago, and now she’s nowhere to be found.”

I nodded.

“Fussy little thing, she was,” he continued. “You aren’t fussy, are you?”

I shook my head.

And then the southerner turned his head and said something to the other man. When he spoke it was as if each word came from the back of his throat. The Amroth man looked at me again.

“And he wants to know if he might trouble the healers for something to drink.”

“What sort?”

“I don’t suppose it matters.”

“I’ll look in the kitchens.”

The southerner shifted his hands over the covers as I changed the bandages on his shoulder, and I saw that his palms were much lighter than the rest of him, nearly as light as mine. His breathing was slow and regular. I almost wanted him to be one of the monsters of the rumors, snarling and black, because then I might have understood why he and his people had dragged themselves across the plains to kill us. But his palms were pink like mine, and the blood caked beneath his dressings was red, and there was sweat beaded at his hairline and he wanted something to drink. Beren told me that he had killed men as well as orcs, I remembered. I couldn’t understand, and the thought of all of it turned my stomach.

The dark man turned his head again and said something to the Amroth soldier, who smiled and murmured a few words in return. It all seemed rather wrong to me, that they should be speaking together instead of the Amroth man speaking only about him to me, and it made me anxious. I could feel myself growing indignant.

“What did he say?” I asked.

The Amroth man said something to the southerner, who smiled and nodded.

“He says you look like his middle daughter.”

“Surely I don’t.”

The two men exchanged words again.

“Not all of you. Mostly about the mouth and the eyes.”

I paused for a moment, and then I looked the southerner in the eye as I tied off the last section of bandage.

“I look like everyone’s daughter,” I said.

“Do you, now?”

I stood up and wiped my hands on my smock. “So why isn’t he at home with his children, then?” I asked. “Why did he come here?”

When the Amroth man spoke his voice was low. “I don’t know, Miss,” he said. “And perhaps he doesn’t, either.”

I went to the kitchens and came back with a cup of chamomile tea, part hot water and part cool so that he could drink it right away, the way I had always done when I made tea for my brother and my cousin. I sat by the southerner’s bed and held his head while he drank. He was warm and his hair was coarse. When he was finished, he said something that might have been thank you.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“He says it was good,” said the Amroth man.

“How do you know their speech?” I asked.

“There was a man from their country in my father’s household when I was young.”

“And he taught you?”

“I asked him to. I thought the words sounded like music.”

“Music?” He nodded. I looked at the southerner again.

“They’ve thrown in their lots with ours, haven’t they?” I asked.

“In a way, yes.”

“And what if Mordor returns, then? I can’t suppose they would be kind to him. What would he think of dying so far from home?”

The Amroth man raised his eyebrows, and he was quiet for a moment. “You can’t expect me to say aught to that, can you, Miss? No more than I would expect him to.”

“Have you asked him?”

“No. And I don’t expect I will.”

 

***

That day the air was sharp and it tasted like a strange food in my mouth. The Houses were quiet once more as I passed through the corridors and out to the northeast gardens. Everyone had been nervous and hushed ever since the Gate had collapsed, as if raising one’s voice would upset the stones. I had been afraid that everyone would want to look at me and speak to me after what I had done, but I saw few people on my way, and they said nothing.

The hours were stretching out into small eternities, and I was idle and anxious through most of them. The fear had not left me, but the edge of it was dulled. I played games with myself, imagining the things I would do or think if the alarms went off that instant, if the call went out that the King’s host had failed, that Mordor had come again. The first time I almost made myself believe, and the feeling was sharp and hard like a knife to my ribs. But I soon grew tired of thinking of the end; it was like looking into the sun, too bright and painful to do for very long, with the shapes burned on the insides of your eyelids long after you had closed them.

My shoes were soundless on the old floors and then on the grass, and I could move through the halls and between the hedges like a ghost.

At the edge of the gardens there was a clearing and a section where the walls and the railings came up to the middle of my chest. It was a place at which you were supposed to lean over and breathe in the City, the blossoms of the gardens and the lye of the Houses, traces of smoke and rot as they rose from the lower circles. I stepped on a stone at the base of the wall, then lifted myself up to sit on it facing the clearing. The flat piece at the top of the wall was about two of my handsbreadths wide. I held on and got the flats of my feet on it, and then I let go and stood up.

I put out my hands out for balance and I saw my fingertips against the clear blue of the sky. It was strange not to be holding on to anything. Beneath my toes it was a sheer drop to the base of the Fifth Circle. The breeze shifted my skirts and the strands of my hair that were loose, and I shivered. At first I was dizzy, but then things stayed still. I took a step along the wall, right heel against left toe, then another and another. I wondered if I could go about the whole circle this way, and how long it would take me. I felt light; if I lost my footing, I thought, I would not fall. Maybe the wind would pick me up, but I would not fall. I stood for a while and looked down, at the layers of the City below me, and beyond that, the fields.

“Hello,” a voice said behind me. I turned myself around and Valacar was there, standing below me.

“Hello.”

“It’s a nice day.”

“Yes.”

“What on earth are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You’re balancing on a very narrow section of the wall.”

“I always wanted to do this when I was younger, you see. But my mother would never allow me.”

“With good reason.”

“It’s nice up here.”

“I suppose it is. But come down, please. You’re making me nervous.”

I looked at him for a long moment, and then said, “Very well.”

He stepped forwards and I crouched down on the wall and sat before lowering myself to the ground. The rough top of the stone wall ground itself into my palms.

“Are you all right, today?” he asked me.

I nodded, and suddenly I felt shy with him.

“About the stitches…” I began.

“Let me see, then.” I held down the edge of my collar and he leaned in towards me. “I suppose it’s about time, isn’t it?” He put his fingertips on my shoulder, and I shrugged away. “That’s healed well enough. Did you want to take them out yourself?”

I thought for a moment. “You had better do it.”

He nodded. “Very well. You can come with me now if you have the time.”

 

***

I lay on my back on the bed in his rooms as he picked out the thread with his smallest knife. I made a noise in the back of my throat as he sliced the first knot.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. It just feels odd.”

“Stitches are a bit odd, aren’t they?” Pick. “Rather unnatural.” He was doing the old trick of speaking steadily as a distraction. It was not working for me because I had done it so many times, myself.

“You didn’t make a sound when I put them in,” he continued. Pick. “I was impressed with that.”

“I cried.”

“Did you?” Pick. “Done.”

He pulled the bits of thread away and sat back.

“Yes, I did,” I said.

He cleared his throat. “Well. At any rate, you didn’t make a sound.”

I touched the place where the cut had been. “How does it look?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t be able to tell there was anything there, unless you knew to look for it.”

I sat up and swung my feet over the edge of the bed. “Thank you.”

He shrugged. “It was no trouble.”

It was a bright day outside, and the sunlight was straining through the window coverings and falling in patches on the bed. The place where the stitches had been felt tender and strange. Suddenly I was very tired; perhaps I had sat up too quickly. I lowered my face and pressed it into my palms.

“Are you all right?” he asked me, and his voice sounded distant even though he was sitting beside me. I nodded without uncovering my eyes.

“I worry about you,” he said. “Terribly.”

“Why?”

“Why do you suppose?”

I said nothing, but I lifted my face from my hands. I thought that the world did not seem that much brighter for it.

“Why do you always keep the drapes shut?” I asked.

“Have you eaten today?”

‘That hasn’t anything to do with it. You answer me, first.”

“It had been so dark, lately. It didn’t seem to matter.” He paused. “You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“I can’t remember.”

“You’ll be lighter than a sparrow, soon. You’ll be nothing but bones.”

“You aren’t so stout, yourself. None of us are.”

He snorted. “That’s true enough. But you should eat.”

We were both quiet for a few moments. Then he said, “Tell me what I can do to help you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Not at all?”

“You looked after me. You gave me stitches. That was fine.”

“That doesn’t matter. I still worry.”

I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I did not want to have to look at him anymore. My shoulders ached and my body had settled against the coverlet in a way that felt peculiar; maybe I was growing lighter just as he had said.

“Well, perhaps you’ll just have to worry about me.”

“Will I, now?”

“Yes. Sit here,” I said, patting the space beside me. There was a long pause before he finally got up and sat at the other end of the bed.

Neither of us spoke. I rolled my eyes up to look at the sunlight that was muted by the drapes, and then I took a deep breath. “Valacar?”

“Yes?”

“What was it like, when you killed that man?”

When he didn’t say anything for several moments, I turned my head and looked up at him. He was not looking at me.

“Well?” I said.

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“Why not?”

“It wasn’t like anything.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“Why on earth would you want to know, anyhow?”

“I don’t know. If you were dying, would you want to know that you were?”

He sighed. “I suppose I would, yes. And you? Would you want to know?”

“I don’t know. No. No, I don’t think I’d like to.”

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

“And what would you do if you had to die here?”

“What do you mean by that? I don’t suppose I would have any choice in the matter.”

“You hate it here, don’t you?”

He snorted. “You must hate it, too.”

“No, I mean, even before the siege. Before everything.”

“No, I suppose this is not the place I would choose to die. Even if I were an old man, and a happy one.”

“So why did you come here in the first place?”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “My father sent me. He sent me away when I was younger than you.”

“Why?”

“For my apprenticeship, of course.”

“And you never went back to the coast?”

“I never went back to the coast.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” He smiled for a brief moment and then it was gone. “Because my father told me not to come back until I was respectably married.”

“Is that all?”

“Of course it isn’t all. There are a lot of things. My father doesn’t like me particularly well. Though I’m nearly as stubborn as he is, I suppose. I’m more like him than I would like to admit. And then it simply became easier to stay away, more than anything else. It sounds foolish when I say it.”

“Do you miss your home?”

“Terribly, some days. Not so much as I did when I first arrived. I suppose that we all settle into our own ways of living here, in the end.”

“I would have married you.”

“You?” His laugh was hard and short, and for a moment I was reminded of Beren. “I’d not have it. You’d be miserable.”

“More than I am now?”

He was quiet; he made a hesitant gesture, and then he reached across the space between us and rested his hand on my forehead. His palm was cool against my skin.

“You’re a good girl. I’m only afraid that I don’t know what to say to you anymore.”

I swallowed. “I met one of the southerners. He was out on the wards. He said I reminded him of his daughter.”

“Did he?”

“I thought that was odd.”

“It is, a bit. Perhaps he wanted to see her badly.”

“Valacar, do you remember when my mother used to go about singing to herself sometimes?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Nothing is ever going to be the same, is it?”

“No, it won’t. But you knew that. We all did.”

“Are you afraid to die?”

“Yes.”

“I think I am, as well. I don’t know. I don’t think I want to die.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

He was quiet.

“Well,” he finally said. “There’s one good thing, at the very least.”

Neither of us spoke for a long while. Eventually he took his hand away from my forehead and he got up and slid open the drapes. The light was startling, but I did not turn my head away even when it stung my eyes.

 

***

And later, when I was outside once more, the light shifted. The breeze picked up and for a moment I thought I saw a bird circling overhead, its fringed shadow gliding over the grass of the gardens. The wind had a murmuring quality, and then what might have been a shout going up in the distance, and then:

“They’re coming back!”

Elloth was beside me and at first I didn’t know what she meant, but then I saw that she was laughing. She had come at me at a run or at a leap, and then her arms were around me and it was too much for either of us to hold for long and then we were both on the ground.

“They’ve come back! They’re coming home! It’s over,” she said, and she was still laughing and when I sat up I could see that her eyes were wet. The world was spinning, and the breeze had picked up about us, and I did not know what to do or what to say and so I simply threw my arms about the other girl and I held on tightly.

In all the days and the years to follow, there were tales, of course, and songs. Hours upon hours of songs; a few very good ones, and more very poor ones, and all the rest fair to middling. There were speeches and there was drinking and there were all manner of things to celebrate, to assure us that we were safe at last, but that one moment of impact, and the sudden weight against me, and the tangled tumble to the grass of the northeast gardens: that was the moment I would remember the most, the one that told me more than any other that it was, indeed, over.


	19. If What They Say is True

I remember wandering through the wards slowly, in a daze. There was singing. A Rohirric man took me by the wrist, asked me to come dance. I turned him down, startled. I stammered but at the same time I might have smiled a little at him. Someone put a cup of something in my hand. 

Is it really true? everyone was asking. What happened? Someone said something about an eagle and a message.

I remember especially the older people, standing quietly while the others shouted and laughed around them. Someone told us that the armies were camped on the field of Cormallen, that the King was camped there with them. I wondered for a moment what we had done to deserve this and I thought that there must be some good among us, after all.

People were asking one another for more news, about the number of killed and wounded. Somewhere there was music, and once again the current of rumors went spreading through the Houses. And then Fìriel was beside me. She was smiling and she draped an arm around my waist; I had been avoiding her, afraid that she might be cross with me for going down to the First Circle after the Warden had taken me off the rotations. But she only kissed my forehead. I could feel her sighing against me.

"You see?" she said. "It's all right." Even though we were in the wards she had taken off her cap and sunlight was shining against her hair. She was radiant and she looked young, younger than she had ever seemed to me before, even when I was a child. "I told you, didn't I?"

"Did you?"

"Of course I did. Everything is going to be all right."

***  
Three days after the news had come, those of us who lived below the Sixth Circle were allowed to return to our houses. I hesitated before folding up my smock and heading to the Fifth Circle. I had not seen my house since the day my family had been evacuated, had not even set foot on the the circle save for the times I passed through on my way to work on the First or the Second. Though I had thought of the house no few times, for some reason I was reluctant to return, at least without my mother. Maybe it seemed improper not to wait for her, though I knew how pleased it would make her to see everything prepared and in its place as if she had never left. 

As I turned the corner into our alleyway, I was afraid of what I might find, but I forced myself to make my way across the flagstones and under the eaves, tracing the route I had taken thousands of times before. I stopped in front of my door. I put my hand on the outer wall, then on the edge of the window, as if I could feel for something I could not see. It all looked the same as when we had left it; our entire alleyway had survived, untouched. I felt grateful, and somehow almost embarrassed. I sat down on the cobbles and did not move for what seemed like a long time.

Many of the able-bodied men who did not have homes in the City came down as well, to help us take stock. Two of the younger ones, foot soldiers from Lossarnach, arrived to help me pry the boards from the doors and windows. Many people still seemed stunned into silence at that time, as if in a surfeit of caution they were not quite able to believe our good fortune; but these two had embraced it with full appetites, singing to themselves as they worked, teasing one another and asking me question after question in their slight lilting accents. Their voices echoed against the close stone walls, making the alley seem crowded.

"Handsome little house, Miss," the taller one said to me. The bridge of his nose was dusted with freckles. "And not so much as a scratch on it, too." He stepped back to place a loose board on the growing pile behind him. "I might want to have a house like this," he added. During his time on the Sixth Circle he had been carrying on an extended flirtation with one of the other girls in the Houses, and now he seemed to be taking in everything in the alley, selecting his own house and peopling it in his mind. 

"And not come back with us! First I've heard of that," said his friend.

By the time they had pulled the last of the boards from the door, both of them seemed more impatient than I was for me to unlock it.

"Well, go on," said the first one, as I stood there and hesitated for the second time that day.

"Thank you," I murmured, and I put my hand on my neck and took out the key from where it hung on a cord. My mother had given it to me after she had locked the door behind us for the last time. In the days before the Siege I had worn it around my neck, underneath my clothes the way my mother still wore her wedding rings on their chain. I would touch it occasionally when I was startled. At some point I had taken it off and tucked it in a pocket where it lived beside my bits of herbs and my handkerchiefs, but this morning I had put it on again, dropping it past the collar of my dress. As I turned it in the lock, the cord now dangling uselessly down the length of the door, I waited for the men to wish me a good day and go on. But they didn't. At first I was annoyed with the way they stood and waited, but as the door creaked I was glad for their presence.

As I stepped inside I wasn't sure what I was afraid of. Perhaps I was afraid of finding some mark or change that had grown there as a sign of our absence, some strange object. I was more afraid, I think, that I would somehow see it differently, see it as smaller or flimsier or darker than I once had. But there was nothing. All our things were folded and stowed as they should have been. The only thing that surprised me (though I should have expected it) was the absence of smells, the rooms without their usual scents of bread and chamomile, soap and candle tallow. 

I moved from one room to another, touching things, peering under tables. It was not until several moments had passed that I realized that the men had not followed me. They were waiting outside, respectful as suitors who had come to pay a call. I returned to the doorway. "Come in, please, if you like," I said.

The house seemed more real when they walked in, bringing their light voices and heavy footfalls. They seemed to praise everything, from the size of our few modest rooms to the tidiness of the hearth (though it could not have been anything else, seeing as no one had cooked in it for several weeks) to the way the sunlight fell across the walls and floors when I drew open the curtains. You might have thought that they had walked in to one of the marble halls of the Citadel, and I went along with them, and for the very first time I was proud of what I had, of what my mother and I had made here. I even apologized that I had no tea or wine to offer them, as if I were a hostess caught unprepared by visitors.

"We'll have to come back some other time," the first one said. "After your mother and brothers arrive."

"Have enough food so that he can bring his girl along," said his friend. "Can't stand to be away from her more than an hour or so. He probably has to go back and see her soon."

"Have more food for him," the first one jabbed back, though he seemed very pleased at the way his friend had said his girl. "He eats twice as much as anyone else I know. And it shows, doesn't it?"

"Strong as a warhorse," shrugged his friend.

"Or fat as a pig come slaughter-time." They seemed comfortable with the rhythms of their argument, as if it were one that had been going on for a very long time. I was not sure if it was more for their benefit or for mine. 

Suddenly I was lightheaded. I promised them warm bread, and cheese and perhaps even a quail or two, and a crackling fire in the hearth later on. I promised them things that I was not sure I remembered until this moment. They slung their tools easily over their shoulders and took their leave with wishes of good luck for me, and they were still squabbling happily, pleased with themselves and with one another as they disappeared down the end of the alleyway.

When they were gone I took the basin from its place beside the hearth and filled it from the public fountain in the square at the end of our alleyway. The little fountain was still flowing, miraculously, I thought. I imagined it trickling in its steady way all throughout the Siege, with nothing but the walls of the square to hear the noise of the water. I brought the basin back to the house and splashed my hands and face, the water cool and bracing against my skin as if I had woken up for the first time that day. I found a bit of soap and scrubbed the table in the main room. I dragged the straw pallets from their bed frames and into the alley one by one to beat the dust from them, and set them back in their places and made them up with their linens. I found the length of cord we used for hanging laundry and I stood on a chair outside and strung it up above the cobblestones again, one end and then the other, although I had nothing to dry on it. I swept cobwebs from the corners of rooms. I was working without thought, as automatically as I had during the most crowded and bloody days of the Siege, finding the holes in the patients and stopping them with my hands, one after the other. 

Soon the sun had begun to set. My bed was ready, and I knew that I did not have to leave. I was not hungry. I could light the hearth and undress and slip beneath the blanket and stay for the night. I sat on the edge of my pallet and I thought of all these things, but then after a while I got up and left, locking the door behind me, hanging the key around my neck once again. I went back up to the Sixth Circle and returned to the Houses for the evening, as it seemed now that I had done for a lifetime. 

***

The next day the young man from Rohan was still in his bed in the wards, but now he seemed to be sitting up straighter.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello."

"Would you like a cake?" I asked. I had a basket-full on one arm; the little cakes had emerged abruptly and in great excess from the kitchens that morning, with instructions to dispense them before they grew stale.

"All right." I put one in his hand and he took a bite.

"Do you like it?" I asked.

He nodded. "It's very sweet."

"That's the idea," I said. "We eat them on special occasions. At a wedding, or when a child is born." 

"We have that, too. Except we drink mead." He paused. "You look better."

"I do?"

"Not quite as sad."

"You look better, too. Stronger."

He smiled, briefly, for the first time that I had seen.

"Are you happy?" I asked.

"I'm better. What about you?"

I thought for a moment. "I'm better," I repeated.

He eyed my basket. "Could I have another one?"

I gave him a cake.

"Thank you. You should have one, too."

"I already have."

"Have another. It's a special occasion."

I sat on the edge of his bed and took a cake for myself. "Will you go back to Rohan, now?" I asked.

"Maybe."

"Haven't you thought about it at all?"

"I thought I was going to die." 

I paused. "Did you want to?"

"No, not especially. But I didn't much want to live, either. Though now I suppose not dying wouldn't be so bad." He took another bite of his cake, then looked at the one that was still in my hand. "What are you doing? Not even one bite."

I took a small bite. "I'm not hungry," I said after I had swallowed. "You could stay here," I told him. "There's lots to be done."

"And what could I do?" he asked, resting his hand at his thigh above where his leg ended.

"I don't know. But I've seen men worse off than you, and they've lived. There must be something."

"If I can't ride, I can't do anything." It was a statement of fact; there was no self-pity in his voice, at least none that I could hear.

"So, learn to ride again."

"You've never been on a horse, have you?"

"No," I admitted.

"That's why you can say that as if it were easy."

"I didn't say it would be easy. You're right; I don't know." I brushed crumbs from the front of my smock.

"And what about you? What will you do?"

"Stay here, of course."

"Why 'of course'?"

"What else would I do?"

"You could do anything you wanted, if what they say is true. The world's cracked open." 

I thought about this for a moment. "No, I need to stay here. Everything is here."

"Like what?"

"My family. My work."

He shrugged. "You could take it with you. It's a strange place, your city."

"You can't have seen very much of it."

"I mean, the people are strange. Your people. You all seem so careful, and so quiet. Everyone here seems as though they're thinking of something else, instead of what's right before them."

"You would be like that, too, if you spent all your life with Mordor across the way."

"And who says we haven't, as well? It's our battle, too. It was, I mean."

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean--"

"Don't apologize. It's only that some of you treat it as though it were your burden alone, as if you were the only ones who really knew what it was."

"I don't think like that."

"I didn't say that you did. Anyway, it doesn't matter, anymore."

"And that's good."

"'That's good,'" he echoed. "See, you're strange, too. Even the words you use are quiet, not just your voice."

I smiled.

"You were right about me, you know," I said. "Sort of. That day, at the window."

"What was I right about?"

"I was waiting for someone. I am."

"Oh?" 

"And I hope he comes back."

"Would you marry him, then?"

"He wants to. He told me so, before he left."

"That isn't what I asked you."

"I don't know. And I don't know if he'll still want to, either. I'm different, now."

"He'll be different, too. War changes a man. You have to know that, by now."

"I suppose," I began. "But I hadn't known too many men who had gone away to the wars, before this year, that is. I spend most of my time in the Houses. They always told us young girls not to go hanging about the barracks."

"With good reason."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't--never mind. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. What does that mean?"

"It means...going to war changes a man, that's what it means."

I tilted my head, as if I could somehow consider him from another angle. "Are you dangerous?"

"That depends. Are you afraid of me?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"You shouldn't be." He paused, and then he asked, "Do you think that most Men are decent Men?"

"I don't know."

"That isn't a hard thing to answer. Either you do, or you don't."

"I don't think it's so simple as that. What do you think?" 

He paused again. "I do. And I said 'most,' not 'all,' so I do think so."

We were both quiet for few moments. It would have been a good point for me to excuse myself and walk away, but for some reason I did not feel like getting up off the edge of the bed. Someone was singing again. It was a new song about the Halfling, Master Meriadoc's cousin.

I said nothing, and then he asked, "Why are you afraid of me?"

"Why?" I repeated.

"You said. You said you might be afraid of me. Why?"

I shrugged. "Because."

"Because I'm a man?"

"Maybe. Yes."

"What about your young man who wants to marry you? Will you be afraid of him, when he comes back?"

"If he comes back."

"Don't be stupid. That's not what I said."

"I hope I won't be."

"I hope so too. For both of your sakes."

"What about you? Are you afraid of anything?"

"No."

"Nothing at all?"

"I've already lost everything I could possibly lose. What else have I got to be afraid of?"

I glanced at him.

"You could lose the other leg," I said. 

"That's not funny."

"I wasn't meaning to be. I don't know how."

The music had stopped. He was eying my basket again and I handed him another cake.

"Thank you," he said. "Well, what about him, then?"

"Who?"

"That other man you told me about on the window ledge. The one who made you so miserable in the first place."

I looked down at my lap and thought about what to say.

"I killed him," I said. 

"Did you?"

I nodded.

"Well," he said. And then he smiled. "Good girl. Look, I can finish that for you if you really can't eat any more."  
***  
One of the other women asked me to come down to the Third Circle with her so that she could look at her house there. She had tried to go the day before, she admitted, but she could not bring herself to make the walk alone.

We were quiet as we set out together. She was only a little older than me; our mothers were friends and we had entered the Houses together as apprentices. She was married to a soldier in one of the City companies, though not the same as Beren's; I had asked. He had courted her only briefly when he had asked for her hand, once it became clear that one day soon he would be consigned to the barracks and then the fields on a far more permanent basis. She had agreed, and her father had assented even though they were both quite young. They were married in a short ceremony in the gardens of the Houses, his captain officiating. They had spent barely a week together in the tiny house that he had inherited from a childless uncle before they were both called away for good, first he to join his company and then she to either stay in the Houses or leave the City. These facts and the fact that she now had her own wedding rings that she wore around her neck had made her seem far older to me, and had put some measure of distance between us even though we were alike in many ways.

The Third Circle was not nearly as wrecked as the First and Second had been, although there were parts that looked nearly as bad. It did not seem as desolate as I had expected because crews of men were everywhere, laboring under the Steward's orders to try to repair what they could and to clear away the worst of what they could not in preparation for the King's return. I did not know what to expect; one row of houses would be standing with little damage, a few gouges in the boarded windows, perhaps, or part of a chimney caved in; but then we would turn the corner to see a row that was no more than splintered wood and broken stone, like the gate house on the First Circle. The other girl kept her arms folded against her chest as we walked.

"Here," she said, and stopped abruptly. "It should be here. It should have been." I looked where she was staring. It was one of the bad blocks, a mound of crumbled stone. Part of what might have been a door lay against the rubble. The slant of a roof was barely discernible.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

She nodded. "I'm sure."

We just stood looking for a while, and then she sat down on the flagstones, the way that I had when I returned to my own house.

"Well," she said. "Well."

I didn't know what to say. She didn't speak, and she didn't move, either, didn't lift her hand to wipe at her eyes. Perhaps she was thinking what I had thought before I had gone to see my own home, bracing myself for what I might find: that it would be foolish to cry over a house, when so many more of our men were already dead with not even their bones to survive them. That it would be foolish to cry when there were so many consolations, our people safe and the men soon to return, and the other women and the children. 

A group of workers passed by, a few of them glancing at us before they moved on. I was ashamed to be standing beside her, especially after I had told her that my house had survived when she had asked me that morning. I was even ashamed that I had chosen not to sleep last night in the bed in which I had slept since I was a child, when she had no choice at all, no option of sleeping tonight in the bed she had shared with her husband. 

I offered to help her if she wanted to step into the wreckage and see if we could salvage any of their things.

"No," she said. "Let's not do that."

We stayed by the remains of the house for a long time, and then she rose to her feet and said, "Let's go back."

"I don't know how I'll tell my husband," she said as we walked up to the Sixth Circle. "He loved that house. At first I thought it was a bit shabby, but then I liked it because he did."

"Perhaps he won't have time to mind it too much. He'll be too happy to mind."

"Perhaps," she nodded.

We were silent for several more paces, and then she said, "Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?"

"I've always been quiet."

"Yes, but not like this. Lately you hardly say a word. I've barely seen you at all this past fortnight."

"I don't know. Maybe I've run out of things to say."

"I don't know if I believe that." I did not know whether to be alarmed or pleased that she had noticed. 

"When is he coming back?" I asked, trying to disprove her.

"Soon, I hope. His company is camped at Cormallen, but if some of the other men say rightly they should soon be able to come and go as they please."

"What is it like, being married?"

"It's really lovely," she said, and now she was smiling. "It's the best thing I've ever done." 

We were walking through the Fourth Circle, now. There were men working here, too; they were moving so quickly to fill buckets of stone and cartloads of splintered wood that from certain angles they looked frantic.

"Why do they think they've got to work so hard?" I asked. "Why should it matter if the King sees all of this or not? He ought to see it. He ought to see just what he's inherited."

She was quiet, and then as we reached the entrance to the Fifth Circle, she said, "He will see it." She took my hand and led me to the top of the steps just before the gate. We turned around and looked outwards. Below our feet the First and Second Circles were crowded with wreckage and movement. It looked as though the City were rising out of itself, stretching up about the mountain and towards the sunlight. "He will," she repeated. "All of it."

"And what will he think, do you suppose? What will he think of all of us?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Perhaps he wonders what we'll think of him, as well."

"And what do you think?"

"I don't know. I don't rightly know much about him, at all. Only what all the stories say he's supposed to be like."

"Me, too. Did you believe all those stories when you were a girl?"

"Of course. I had to believe something, after all." We studied the lower circles in silence for a few moments more.

"Come on," I said. "We should go back to work."

 

.


	20. Fallen

Once again we all took shifts on the lower circles, but this time we helped move rubble and debris instead of corpses. I was surprised at the speed at which the work details were shifting away all but the heaviest pieces of broken stone. The lower circles were still mostly in ruins, but a kind of order was emerging, so that we could at least see the scaffolding for the years of work that it would take to restore things.

Bergil paused, standing with his arms folded over his chest. We had been assigned to the same shift, clearing away the smaller and lighter pieces of wreckage after the heavy-lifting details had gone through. I was mildly amused at the thought of sweeping up after a battle the way that one might sweep the floor of a kitchen, for that seemed to be what we were doing. It was good to be working outside, I thought. The hem of my dress swiftly became coated in ashes and dust, but the sunlight warmed my face and my hands.

“Do you think they’ll make it all the same again, when they build it back up?” he asked me. “Or do you suppose they’ll try to make something new?”

The question had not occurred to me before. I set down the basket full of masonry bits and metal fragments I was holding. There were precious few scraps of wood left on the lower circles, for those had almost all gone to feed the funeral fires. 

“Knowing the way the City works, I’d wager they’d try to build it as it was before, or as much as they could,” I said.

Bergil looked disappointed at that. “I’d have liked to see something new.”

“It can be a comfort to have familiar things about.” I shrugged. “But don’t listen to me--these things are certainly not in my charge.”

“Did you say you’d wager?” he asked, smiling.

“Are you taking me up on that, sir?”

He thought a moment, and then he said, “Yes! Come on.” And he led me through an archway whose top had been taken clean off. “Do you remember this courtyard?”

I had to close my eyes and think. “Yes,” I began slowly. “There was...a shallow set of steps against the far wall, there. Leading up to a walkway about halfway up the wall, and the walkway had tall windows with arched tops, and thin borders. And two narrow benches against that wall.”

Bergil nodded. “And there was a stone circle, just there,” he added, pointing. “And a small fountain. I always thought it looked odd, since it was so small compared to the whole courtyard. And yet it was right in the middle, and it looked the smaller for it.”

“Yes.” I was surprised at how much I remembered. “It was sort of strange, wasn’t it?”

“Shall we wager, then?”

“And on what exactly would we wager, Master Bergil?”

“That in…two years’ time, this courtyard will look just the same as it used to. You will wager yea, and I will take the nay side.”

“Will you, now? And for what are we gambling? I’m not terribly rich.”

“Nor am I,” he said, his tone now serious. He thought for a moment. “What about two pounds of sweets?”

“Two pounds? That’s a lot.”

“I know!” he grinned.

“Very well, then,” I sighed. And then for a moment I stood stunned, admiring this boy who was so certain of a future in which there would indeed be shops to sell sweets, and people to make them and measure them out. I was nineteen years old; my shoes were covered in grey dust, and I could scarce see past the next fortnight. 

“Two pounds of sweets, to be delivered to the winner forthwith in two years’ time,” he said, and if he had noticed the strangeness of my pause, he did not show it. “So say I, Bergil son of Beregond, messenger of the White City of the Realm of Gondor.”

“‘So say--’?” I snorted. “You haven’t been reading those important messages you’ve been running back and forth to the Citadel, have you?”

“The ones that aren’t sealed can’t be too important, can they?”

“Huh,” I said, wondering what other sorts of things he knew. “Well, at any rate, you have your wager.” We shook hands upon it, taking one more look at the courtyard, and then we went back to work. I couldn’t decide which one of us I hoped would win.

***

After my shift with the sweep-crews, I had a few hours free and I went back up to the Sixth Circle. Valacar was standing with a cluster of others at the northeast walls, looking out towards the road.

“Are you looking for something?” I asked him. He turned around, startled, but he recovered quickly.

“Riders with news from Cormallen near Cair Andros, where the hosts are camped,” he said.

“So I suppose no one’s seen anything yet, today?”

He shook his head. “There’s been no word since yesterday. When any news does reach the City, it will make its way up here swiftly enough. I suppose I’m not really sure why I’m waiting here.”

I shrugged. “We’re all quite good at waiting, aren’t we?”

He smiled. “I suppose we’ve had to be, yes. How are you?” he asked, turning away from the walls.

“I’m well enough, thank you,” I said. “A bit hungry, though.”

“Really?”

I nodded.

“Well, come on, then. That’s the best thing you’ve said all week.”

The kitchens were in a mild state of chaos as the members of the work details came and went on their breaks, tired and sun-warmed, light patches of masonry dust clinging to their clothes. I managed to gather up some bread and cheese that had not yet been set upon. I looked around; while the long tables were not full end to end, they were hosting a great number of small groups, and it would be difficult to find any space between them.

“Should we go to your room, then?” I asked Valacar.

He stepped back to avoid a group of young men who were passing through. “I suppose,” he said.

***

Inside, Valacar opened the curtains, and we sat together and ate. I was able to finish nearly everything on my plate, and it did not taste bad.

After several minutes of silence, he said, "Don’t take this poorly, but maybe you ought to stop coming around here so often."

"Why?"

"People might start talking,” he said.

It took me a moment to think of what he meant, and then I laughed. "About us?" I asked.

“That might seem strange to you,” he said. “But you never know.”

"I don't care," I said. The thought hadn't crossed my mind before this, and it made little difference to me; all the same, I was oddly touched that he would think of such a thing.

"You should care," he said. "What about--" he smiled. "You did mention a boy, once? With an unfortunate name, if I remember rightly."

"Beren,” I said.

"That’s right. What about Beren?"

“He’s a friend.”

Valacar said nothing. I blinked, and I remembered that last time that Beren and I had sat in the garden together, and when I had gone to say goodbye to him. It all seemed like an Age ago, and in a way, it was. "He... He did ask me to marry him.” I paused. “I think."

Valacar raised his eyebrows at that. "Really? You think.”

I took a breath, and then I stared down, pushing a crust of bread around on my plate. 

"I don't think I want to marry him, though,” I said slowly.

He nodded. "That’s all right, then."

"If I had to marry anyone, it would be him,” I said. “I like him a great deal, but I don't really want to marry anyone." 

Valacar didn't say anything, and I went on, surprising myself. 

"I just don't want to. I don't think I can." I looked around, and inclined my head a little bit towards the narrow bed that sat against the wall. "I can't,” I repeated, and I could feel myself flinch.

He was quiet a moment more. "Give it some time," he said, very gently. 

I shook my head. 

“It hurt,” I said. I couldn’t quite believe that I was telling him this sort of thing, but for some reason I went on. “More than anything. I didn’t think it would hurt so much.”

I looked back up at him. He took a breath, as if he were about to say something, but then he stopped himself.

"Anyway,” I went on, “I don't know if Beren would even have me, if I told him. A man’s got a right to turn away a fallen woman, hasn’t he?”

“Many men wouldn’t consider a woman to have lost her honor if it was taken from her unwilling.”

“That’s a pretty way of saying it,” I spat. He blinked at the hardness in my voice, and I stopped myself. He was only trying to be kind. “I’m sorry,” I said.

He nodded. "He would make no compunction,” he went on, “if he's got any sort of decency in him. Which I'm sure he has."

I said nothing. We were quiet for several minutes. Valacar got up, tended to the fire in the grate, and set the kettle amidst the flames.

He sat down across from me again, and when next I spoke, I made my tone as light as I could manage. 

"How would you know, at any rate?” I asked. “You've never been married."

"Well, that's true,” he smiled, and I was glad that he had followed my lead. “But I am a man. And I'm a little bit decent, I think."

"A little bit," I agreed, and he laughed at that. 

I paused, and then I said, "I would marry you."

"I already told you, I'd make a very poor husband." 

He stopped and looked at me, and his smile faded. "You're not serious, are you?"

I didn't say anything.

"Are you pregnant?" he asked.

"No, thank the Valar," I said, louder than I needed to.

"That’s well, then. I would have consented, under those circumstances,” he added.

I felt myself flush, grateful and embarrassed at once. 

"You're very kind," I said. "And I like you."

"Thank you,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “But not in the same way you like Beren, I hope."

"No. But you're very kind," I repeated. "And..."

He folded his arms. "And women don’t much interest me in that manner, if that’s what you mean." 

“I suppose,” I murmured. 

"Not much of a romantic, are you?" he smiled.

"I haven’t much reason to be, have I?" I asked, looking him in the eye.

"No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

"Are you a romantic?" I asked.

He snorted. "Not at all."

"Then why should I be?"

"Because you're young," he said. "And you still have a chance."

"Do I?” I said. "I don’t know if I have a chance. And I don't think I know what sort of person I am, anymore."

"You're sweet," he said, "and funny. You're a bit shy. You're a good healer."

"I was," I said. I shook my head as all the memories returned unbidden. "I was.” I stared at him. “You know, sometimes I think he wanted to make me like him."

"Who did?"

"The man who..." I exhaled. "Him. He wanted to make me angry, like he was. Hateful, and scared. And he did, I think."

"You're not like him,” he said.

"Aren't I?" My voice broke a little, but my eyes were dry.

"You couldn't be.”

"We all could be," I said, "if things were to go wrong enough." 

"Well, they didn't."

"Maybe they did,” I said, “for me. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself anymore. Maybe things went just wrong enough.”

"No," he shook his head. "I may be from Amroth, but I’ve lived here many years. You're a Minas Tirith girl. You're made of sterner stuff than you look."

"That's what I used to think."

He grimaced. "Stop," he said. I said nothing. "I heard that the refugees should be returning soon,” he said. “Your mother will be here, again."

I nodded. I longed to see my mother again, as I had for the whole of the Siege, and after. But I was also afraid that perhaps she would not recognize her own daughter, that she would sense something wrong about me. And then what would I do?

“And what about your kin, in Amroth?” I asked him. “Have you had any word from them?”

“Not directly, yet, but I hope to, soon. I hear that the city is safe, there, and that the civilians were able to take shelter.”

“That’s good.”

He nodded, and got up to take the kettle out of the embers in the hearth.

“Tea?” he asked me.

“Yes, please,” I said. “And what about you? Will you have your post back, now?”

“I don’t know,” he said, as he poured out the steaming water. “But,” he continued, “I have heard that one of the captains who was on the First Circle the other day made a favorable report to the lord Steward.”

“Did he?” I smiled.

“So I heard,” he said. “And so I’m sure that you had some mention as well, if that was the case.” He put the kettle back in its place beside the hearth.

“Really?”

He nodded. “As for the moment, however, I am still lacking employment. Which is yet another reason I would be a very poor husband,” he concluded, and he reached over and chucked me under the chin.

“Smile,” he said. “Remember, we won.”

***

The next morning, it seemed that messengers had indeed arrived from Cormallen to the northeast, for the Warden called us all to the atrium for to hear the news. We stood gathered in a loose ring, and I went up on my toes briefly to try to see over the heads of the people in front of me.

“Stop it,” said Elloth, who was standing beside me as I shifted from one foot to the other. “You don’t have to see him. You only have to hear him.”

“I know that,” I replied, but all the same I stayed on my toes. “I suppose he’s got some sort of message about the Hosts, or the King.”

From his place at the ring’s center, the Warden silenced our murmurs. He did not have to raise his voice a great deal, because the atrium was built in such a way that sound carried easily all through it. It was nice in times of quiet, but it had been horrid during the Siege, when the moans and cries had rung through the space, building on one another as the hours wore on.

“Gentlemen,” he said, quieting down one last group whose members were speaking amongst themselves. “Ladies. Thank you.” 

While his voice was even, it also lacked the lightness I knew it would have if he had only good news to deliver to us. I had been listening to him since I was very young, and these things were not easily mistaken. Elloth must have known this, too, for she shot me the briefest of glances, and then, looking away from me again, took my hand in hers.

“A message arrived today from the field of Cormallen, where the armies have camped. Captain Anendil of the Sixth Minas Tirith infantry regrets to inform us that...” And here he paused and took a breath. Elloth’s grip on my hand tightened. “That Surgeon’s Apprentice Laeron is not returned from the Morannon.”

In the moment that followed there must have been no few exclamations, or at least sharp intakes of breath. But if there were, I heard none of it. There was only the rushing of blood in my ears. My knees nearly gave out beneath me, but I kept myself standing. Elloth was not so lucky. Her hand still gripped mine, but I could feel her go limp beside me. I threw an arm around her shoulders and managed to keep her from buckling to the floor, pressing my weight up against hers. Just as quickly she righted herself again.

“...have returned safely,” the Warden was saying. And now his voice was growing just the slightest bit thicker, this man who had seen us through the Siege and seen at least as much death and destruction as the most seasoned commander of the West. 

“Each captain has sent a full list of casualties from his unit, to be posted in the Fifth Circle market square forthwith. We will expect a large number of men in the wards over the next few days as the armies return to the City, but there should not be very many dire cases, as the wounded are being treated at Cormallen. I have no more news at this time, but be assured I will share with you any more that I receive.” No one moved. 

“You may return to your business, now,” he said, and he turned quickly and walked back through the crowd.

***

I sat with Elloth in the southeast gardens, beneath the same gnarled tree under which Beren and I had sat before he had departed. We didn’t speak for a very long time.

“There has to be some mistake,” I finally said. My mouth was dry and my limbs were heavy. “There has to be.”

Beside me, Elloth lifted her face from where she had rested it in her palms. Her eyes were red, her body as taut as a drawn bowstring.

“I should have stopped him,” she said. Her voice was hoarse with tears.

I was quiet, until I realized she might be expecting me to say something.

“You tried,” I said. “We all did. There was nothing for it.”

“I should have tried harder,” she said, her voice growing louder, and although she wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, her words continued to come steadily. “I know he fancied me. I’m foolish about a lot of things, but not about that. I could have tried harder.”

“Don’t say that, Elloth.”

“Shut up,” she said, her voice sharper than I had ever heard it before. “In some ways it wasn’t so real to me, if you can believe that. I know,” she said, shooting a glance at me, though I had not said anything. “Sometimes I tried to see it all as make-believe, and sometimes it worked. I wanted it to be something else. I could have tried harder. And now he’s gone. I’m such a stupid, stupid girl.” And with that she put her face in her palms and broke into sobs.

I put my arms around her. “That’s not true, either,” I said. My mind was blank--I still thought that there must have been a mistake. “It isn’t.” She was thin, like me, but her body shook with a violence that also belied some sort of strength. At first her arms were wrapped around herself, but then she embraced me and I could feel the warmth of her tears in the hollow of my neck. 

“Oh, Ell,” I said, because I could not think of anything else to say.

***

And though I would rather have done almost anything else, I thought that someone ought to tell Valacar, if no one had, yet. For the second time in as many days, I went to his door.

“It’s unlocked,” he said when I knocked.

When I entered the room, he was sitting on his bed and I could see from his face that he already knew. I shut the door behind me.

“I heard,” he said. “Fíriel told me.”

I nodded and said nothing. I stood rooted to the floor and the heaviness took hold of me again. My stomach hurt.

He sat with his head in his hands, and then he got to his feet. In what seemed like a single movement, he stepped forward and overturned the table at which we had eaten yesterday. The chairs went with it. Glasses shattered; the rim of the table was thick and all of the pieces were heavy, and it all hit the floor with a terrible finality. I started, taking a clumsy step backwards. Objects rolled and settled. 

He was breathing hard, and he stared at the things on the floor as if he were as surprised as I was. 

“What am I going to tell his mother?” he asked, and his voice was low and the question seemed all the more terrible for that. 

 

“I don’t know,” I said. My voice just above a whisper, as though all of the noise had taken the sound out of me. I couldn’t look at him. A few sheets of paper had come to rest near my feet, and an overturned well from which black ink was slowly pooling out. It was soaking in to the corner of one of the pages.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

I nodded again, and then I sank to my knees. I began to pick up pieces of glass from the floor. I wrapped my left palm in the hem of my smock and held the pieces there so that I would not cut myself on them.

Valacar swore, and said, “You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s all right,” I said. I dropped the pieces from my left hand into a wooden dish which had settled right-side up. My hands were smudged with ink. My throat closed and my eyes blurred over.

He knelt beside me and rested a hand lightly on my shoulder. I looked at him, but I didn’t flinch.

He started to say my name, and then I leaned into him and pressed my face into his shoulder. Something went slack inside me like a rope come loose from a pulley. If you had asked me a few days ago, I would have told you that I done all of the crying I would do for the rest of my life, but now I was weeping harder than I could remember weeping for myself. Valacar hesitated a moment, and then he put an arm around my back and a hand at the back of my head. He was thin and warm, and though he had not been at surgery, he still somehow smelled like lye soap. I did, too, for all I knew.

“I’m sorry,” I kept saying. “I don’t know.”

Eventually I let go and sat up again. I felt leaden, and also vaguely embarrassed. Valacar stood up and got me a handkerchief, although he didn’t have one for himself, simply wiping at his face with the back of his sleeve. He righted one of the chairs and offered it to me with a gesture, and I got up and went over and took a seat. 

He pushed the table back into its proper position, and then he began to gather up the things that had been pitched to the floor. He put a hand up to stop me when I moved to help, and I stayed where I was. He dumped the objects, both broken and whole, in an unceremonious heap on the table, and then he went and sat on the bed.

“Well, I suppose it’s like with any of the men,” he began. “He knew what he was getting in to.”

“Did he?”

“He should have. He was at work during the Siege, like the rest of us.”

“It doesn’t seem the same, somehow. It’s all awful, of course, but...”

“I know. It’s not the same.”

“Did you love him?”

He looked up, startled at the question. Then he wiped at his eyes again.

“Yes.” He smiled wanly. “He was the only apprentice they ever gave me. I imagine he’s the closest to a son I’ll ever get, even if I only had him from sixteen.”

“And I had him from twelve,” I said.

“I know. You all raised yourselves in the Houses, more or less.”

“Cook helped,” I said, and he smiled again, briefly.

“I couldn’t protect him,” he said, and his tone was flat. “I couldn’t protect either of you.”

“We weren’t in your charge,” I said. “Not in that way. We’re not children, anymore.”

“I know,” he replied. “But, still.”

We were silent for a long time after that, before Valacar cleared his throat.

“I checked the lists on the Fifth Circle earlier today,” he said. “You’ll be glad to know that there was no ‘Beren’ under any of the City units. He’s safe.”

I shuddered with relief and perhaps also with guilt. “Thank you,” I whispered.

I asked him about some of the other men who had been in the wards before they had gone to the Black Gate; Valacar remembered seeing or not seeing some of their names, but he said that he would check again later to be sure.

***

Although I had not been officially re-assigned to the wards, I went back, anyway, and no one seemed to notice. I helped the young man from Rohan with a pair of crutches he had just acquired.

“How are they?” I asked, and he stood up with them, slowly but surely, the first time he had risen on his own since he had arrived here.

“It’s all right,” he replied. “Strange.”

“It will be strange at first. You’ll soon grow accustomed to it. And soon you’ll need only one.”

“Only one. Happy thought,” he said sardonically. Then he sat back down on his bed and put the crutches aside.

“Happier than many others,” I said.

“True enough,” he conceded. He paused. “I heard about that apprentice from your Houses. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” I said, although I almost felt guilty to accept his sympathy, since after all his own loss had been greater than any of mine, and greater than any I could have fathomed.

Maybe he sensed this, because next he said, “We have a verse in the Mark--perhaps you’ve heard it: Mourn not overmuch, mighty was the fallen, meet was his ending.”

“I have heard it,” I said. “Your people have many good songs.” And then I continued: “When his mound is raised, women then shall weep.”

He smiled again, with a sheepish look. “I didn’t think you’d remember that second part, I guess.”

“War now calls us,” I finished. “I remember.”

“So you do.”

“Does it bring you comfort, that verse?”

He paused, and his smile faded. “Not really, no. But for you, it might.”

“And I thank you for it,” I said. He practiced with the crutches several more times, and then I said, “We’ll be gathering tomorrow evening, just those of us in the Houses. And the men who are staying here, as well, if they like,” I added. “Please join us.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“You won’t,” I said. “You’re not a stranger. Please.”

***

The following night, we went once more to the northeast gardens. Most of the staff from the Houses were gathered, and many of the men who had remained in the City with us after the Host had marched away. A few of the men and women were lighting torches, kindling one from another and mounting them in the sconces that were molded into the pillars in this section of the gardens. I realized that I had not seen the torches lit in the gardens for a long time--all of our efforts had gone into keeping the wards lighted. A few people were going around, helping to distribute a mismatched collection of wooden and earthenware cups that must have been salvaged from the kitchens. 

I helped the young man from Rohan, who was slow but mostly steady on his crutches. Most of the workers and the soldiers were standing, but I helped him to settle himself on a stone bench, and then to stow the crutches beneath it. I sat down beside him so that he would not feel strange for sitting.

Fíriel came over and placed a hand on my shoulder. “How are you?” she asked. I had not seen her at all yesterday, though I knew that she had spoken to Valacar at some point.

“About the same as the rest of us, I suppose.”

“Me, too,” she said, and then asked after the young man. He replied politely enough.

“What’s your name, anyhow?” I asked him, after she had moved on.

“Ceorth,” he replied.

Soon after all the cups had been distributed, wine followed in large pitchers. I had no idea where it might have come from, for last I saw, the barrels in the kitchens had looked fairly diminished in number. But I suppose that there always would have been some hidden reserve waiting for us at the last minute, if it came to that. Ceorth poured some wine into the cup he had been given, and then took it upon himself to fill mine nearly to the brim despite my protestations.

“I think you need it,” he said.

I glanced around at the other men and women who made up the circle. The light flickered on everyone’s faces, giving the illusion that there was more movement than there actually was. These were the people with whom I had broken stale bread day after day in the weeks leading up to the Siege, and after. These were the people with whom I had stood shoulder to shoulder in the thick of things, up to our elbows in blood, cloths wrapped over our mouths and noses to keep out the stench of death. We had shared the weight of stretchers and of living and dead bodies, and we had fed the funeral fires on the lower circles. These were the girls with whom I had shared narrow mattresses in our improvised siege-quarters after our parents had gone from the City. We had plaited one anothers’ hair and breathed each others’ breath. I looked around, and I was grateful for all of them.

Elloth came and sat beside me on the bench.

“This is Ceorth,” I said. “From the Westfold, in the Mark. Ceorth, this is my friend Elloth.”

“Master Ceorth,” Elloth nodded politely, and for the first time I could recall, she did not smile as she was being introduced to a young man.

“Well met, Mistress,” he replied.

I spied Valacar standing across from us, speaking to some of the other surgeons. They had their heads bent down.

“Very well, then,” said Nauthir, one of the older surgeons, his voice raised a bit. He had turned in to face the circle. “Valacar, would you like to begin?” Valacar shook his head. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” said Valacar.

“All right.” Nauthir raised his glass, and we all did the same. “To Laeron,” he said. “To the victorious fallen.”

“Laeron,” everyone repeated in scattered murmurs, and we drank. The wine was sweet and heavy, and it burned at the back of my throat, as wine generally did on the rare occasions that I drank it.

Nauthir looked around before he continued. “Would the young people like to say anything?” he asked.

“I will,” said Nauthir’s apprentice, stepping forward slightly. “He was a good surgeon. He worked hard.” Again, a scattered murmur of assent. One of the surgeons standing beside Valacar clapped him on the shoulder and said something to him, at which he nodded.

“I don’t know how he managed to stop fidgeting long enough to wield a scalpel, but well for him that he did,” smiled another apprentice, to gentle laughter. “Not to mention his patients,” someone else added.

“He was a good friend,” Elloth put in, from her seat beside me.

I thought about one of the last talks we’d had before he’d left.

“He loved Minas Tirith, more than anything else,” I spoke up. “He loved this City and her people.” I paused. “He wasn’t afraid.”

We talked about Laeron like that for a long time, and somehow there always seemed to be someone going around to refill everyone’s glasses. The young men and women shared stories, and everyone said all the things that you are supposed to say about someone who has died before reaching his twenty-first birthday. We had already seen so many men die young, of course, but as I had said, this was different. This was one of ours.  
I think that some part of me still did not believe that he truly was not coming back. This last remaining part of me would not be made to believe until one day, many weeks later, when I was alone in the kitchens and remembering how he had been kind enough to eat the burnt rolls I had pulled from the ovens. And then I would have to sit down, for the weight of it all.

But tonight was tonight, and gradually we shifted from toasts to the victorious fallen to toasts to the victory, itself.

“To King Elessar,” one of the men offered, holding up his glass. “To the return of the King to Gondor. Long may he reign.”

“Long live the King!”

“Gondor!”

“To Éomer-king,” said one of the young Guardsmen, turning to a Rider who stood beside him. “And to the House of Éorl, who kept their vow and came to us in our hour of greatest need.” The Rider smiled and put an arm about the Guardsman’s shoulders at that, and beside me Ceorth added something in his own language as the cheers went up.

And so inevitably we went down the line, toasting the Ringbearer, the perian whom we heard had saved us all. We toasted our new Steward, Faramir, and Lady Éowyn of the Shield-Arm, and our own Warden, of course, and every captain of every company whose name we could recall, and then those that we could not recall. Finally we ran out of great people to toast, but somehow there was still more wine about, so we took to saluting one another.

“To Nauthir,” said Nauthir’s apprentice. He was slurring his words just the slightest bit. “May his wife welcome him back with open arms, like the forgiving lady she--ow!” He was cut off as his master hit him on the back of his head, looking entirely unamused.

In order, perhaps, to take away any unwanted attention from himself, Nauthir offered up his own toast, and to my surprise the name he called was mine. “For her courage on the First Circle.” I could only smile at that. I took another drink, and then I stood up.

“To Valacar,” I said, looking across the circle at him. “He knows why.” A few people laughed at the brevity of my statement, but probably they attributed this to the wine, since it was known that I didn’t often drink. Valacar only nodded and gave the barest of smiles, as the men standing with him once again clapped him on the shoulder.

“To your City,” said one of the young men from Lossarnach who had helped me get my house back in order the other day. “May she regain her beauty of old, and may her homes once again be filled with fair children and fair women.”

“High-hearted women!” added Ceorth, and I turned to look at him in surprise, since he had been quiet up to now. He turned to me and smiled.

“High-hearted women!” echoed the men.

“And to our children’s children,” said Elloth, and her voice was strong and clear. She, too, had been quiet since her first remark about Laeron. “May they never have to purchase their safety at the price of their innocence.” 

And at that the laughter died down to a murmur once more, to a quiet scattering of “Hear, hear.”

“To our children’s children,” said Fíriel. “May they have less need of soldiers than of healers.”

“I,” said the young man from Lossarnach, looking just a bit unsteady on his feet, “would like to offer a saying uttered by Fëanor, himself.” He held his cup aloft, and said, “That which slays thee not, shall be as thy strength!”

“I don’t think he said that,” said his friend, even as the toast was answered.

“He did. He definitely did.”

A half-hearted argument flared up, then, and spread to the other parts of the circle. No little wine was spilled on the grass of the gardens as broad gestures were made to underscore points of contention.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Fíriel, and I turned to see that she was standing on one of the benches. She was smiling. “Here’s to, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.’”

“Like this wine,” concurred the young man from Lossarnach.

“Wait and see about that,” said his friend. 

From there, the official toasts dissolved into conversations. I felt warm and I only listened, staring ahead at nothing in particular. I wondered if I was drunk, and I decided that I probably was.

It was late, and as the group finally began to disband, Valacar stepped forward.

“To Laeron,” he said, and it seemed understood that this would be the final salutation of the evening. “And may those who make peace in high places, grant peace for us, and for all our nations.” He looked around. “To the fallen.”


	21. Civilians

Over the following days, riders did indeed approach from the northeast. Although King Elessar and his party were still camped at Cormallen, we received word that many of the companies had been granted leave to return to Minas Tirith. And so they came walking and riding back through the ruined gates of the City bearing their standards, looking tired and dazed, but proud. And, most importantly, alive.

As the Warden had predicted, the Houses became busier, as men reported to the wards with such injuries that had not posed a hindrance to their return journey but which still wanted attention. The other apprentices from our Houses who’d accompanied the host to the Black Gates returned, too. It made me ache all the more that Laeron was not among them.

And the work went on, and I waited and wondered, until one afternoon I was making rounds in the south ward when someone called my name. I turned around.

“Beren!”

He was standing near the entrance to the ward, just beyond the last row of beds. He had a faint black eye, but he was standing up straight enough. I crossed the space between us and he caught me up in his arms, laughing.

“Well, I’m back,” he said.

***

For a few moments we were shy with one another, as if he were a new suitor coming to pay a first call. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt fortunate.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Well enough, and you?”

“I hardly know,” he said, but he was smiling.

“More good than bad, I hope.” I rested my hands on his elbows and looked up at him.

“It’s over. It’s done.”

“I know,” I said.

“I still can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I.”

And he sank to his knees in front of me, there between the rows of beds in the south ward, and he began to cry.

“Beren,” I said. I sat down on the nearest bed and put my hand on his head. His hair was short; he must have cut it when he was at Cormallen. I rested my other hand on his shoulder.

He swore. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think I would ever come here, again. I didn’t think I would see you again.”

I hesitated, and then I said, “I didn’t think I would see you again, either.” From this side of events, it seemed almost an admission of failure; I was glad that we were able to confess at the same time. 

“It’s all right,” I said. I put my hand against the unbruised side of his face and remembered what Valacar had said to me the other day. “We won.”

He looked up at me. “Yes,” he said, “we did.” And all of a sudden he was laughing again, even as he still wiped tears from his eyes. He turned his head and kissed my palm. “You must think I’m mad.”

I smiled. “Even if you are, you’re no more so than I am, or anyone else in this city.”

“Ha!” 

He got to his feet and brushed himself off. His movements were stiff and tentative. 

“I’m wanted by my captain soon, but my company is camped on the Pelennor tonight and we are at our leisure to entertain guests. Will you come down and take supper with us?”

***

That evening, Elloth and I made our way down to the First Circle and through the gaping maw in the main wall that had once been the Great Gate. Already there was scaffolding there to begin its rebuilding. 

I had had to work hard to convince her to come with me. Normally it would have been the other way around, with Elloth eager to spend time with the young soldiers, and me hanging back. But ever since learning of Laeron’s death, she had grown quiet and sullen, even beyond the measure of grief that most of us harbored. Of course, I knew something of that, myself. She had always had a vein of steel just beneath the surface of her, I thought; now it was simply bared to the outside once enough of her had been worn away. I thought it would do her some good to be out under the sky and outside of the City walls. She had finally relented when I had told her I did not think it would be proper for me to go down to the camps by myself. 

The Pelennor was dotted with bonfires and tents; most of the captains were camped here, with their men, rather than taking up quarters in the City. Company banners were planted in the ground, and they stirred in the light breeze. Even in the darkness I could make out the green of Rohan, the blue of Dol Amroth, and the new black of the King, so different from the Stewards’ plain white. To make their camps, the men had had to clear away yet more battle debris, which lay in ashy mounds at odd intervals.

Beren had given me directions on how to find his company’s encampment, and we were able to reach it quickly. The unit had a large fire going a ways away from their simple canvas tents; a large one that had to belong to the officers, and several smaller ones for the men. The fire was ringed with a few makeshift seats of planks and discarded masonry blocks, but most of the men sat on the ground, balancing bowls and water-skins in their laps.

Beren stood up to greet us as soon as he saw us. 

“It’s good to see you again,” he said to Elloth.

“And you,” she replied politely.

The men promptly moved to offer us the best spots beside the fire. I could see them adjusting their postures, as if they had to reacquaint themselves with the notion of having women in their midst. Beren introduced us to his friends, Minas Tirith boys all. They were kind and a bit grave like he was, with hard edges of humor creeping into their speech now and then. The scrapes and bruises on their faces were fresh, and a few of them had their arms in slings, but their clothes were clean, and like Beren, many of them looked to have had their hair newly cropped. Supper was a stew made from some wild pheasants that one of the men had managed to bag on the road back through Ithilien, sopped up with thick crusty bread.

“This is good,” I said. “Thank you.”

“It’s Beren’s,” said one of his friends, grinning at me. “He’s a tolerable cook when the need arises.” At this Beren smiled and tilted his head to one side.

“He also slew an orc-captain,” his friend added.

“Did you, now?” I asked.

“I had help with that,” Beren said. “The stew, however, I made by myself.”

***

“Tell me about the Black Gate,” Elloth said after we had finished the meal. The men were passing around a flask of something strong. I looked at Elloth. Firelight reflected on her hair and in her grey eyes, and she was beautiful and still. 

The men exchanged glances.

“We fought in two circles,” one of them, Relion, began slowly. “We were in the circle with the King. There was a lot of smoke, and ash. The air was so thick, even before it began. I thought I would choke.”

“And the Riders and the beasts, overhead—the hellhawks, as we took to calling them. But you know of those. And their cries.” 

“And before that, don’t forget. There was an awful man come to have words with the King—at least, I think he was a man.”

“I thought we were all set to perish there. We were ready to fight to the last man,” Beren said. He looked at his friends for confirmation, and received scattered nods in return. “I thought that those slag hills would be our grave, until…they weren’t,” he finished.

No one spoke for a few moments after that.

“And what else?” Elloth persisted. I nudged her with my elbow, but she ignored me.

“Maybe some other time,” one of the men said, not unkindly. Elloth lifted her chin, but then she nodded.

“And what about you ladies?” Relion asked.

“What about us?” I asked, smiling.

“Have you nothing of import to tell us?”

Elloth and I exchanged a glance. “Nothing that you’ve not yet heard, I’m sure,” I replied.

“Well then,” he said, “why don’t you tell us something of little or no import? I, for one, am tired of hearing no one but these fools speak from sunup to sundown.” He indicated his friends, a couple of whom took halfhearted swipes at him for that remark. “If there’s anything we’ve missed, it’s the sound of a woman’s voice.”

“Hear, hear,” said Beren, taking a drink and glancing at me.

“Elloth is a wonderful storyteller,” I put in.

“Let’s have a story, then,” said one of the men.

Elloth shook her head, but then she may have smiled for just a moment.

“Go on, Elloth,” I said, and this time it was her turn to elbow me in the ribs. After several minutes of exhortation and another drink, however, she relented.

“Very well,” she said. “This is a story that was told to me by Master Meriadoc from the Shire, cousin to the Ring-bearer.” The men glanced at one another, seeming duly impressed at that. “And it was told to him by an old kinsman. So I may not have all of it right, in my head.” 

“Sounds promising, nevertheless,” said Relion, lifting his hands up to warm them by the fire.

She began: “In a hole in the ground there lived a perian…”

***

At first, Elloth’s voice was low and hesitant. She did not look at her audience, but only stared into the fire. But as the story went on, a bit of the old gleam returned to her eyes, and she would pause and look about at the right moments for dramatic effect. She spoke faster or slower, more loudly or more quietly, as the events of the tale called for, as all good storytellers are wont to do. It was clear that all the men had taken to her quite well, or at least to her story. Even in mourning, she could not resist the thrill of being at the center of attention, and I was glad for that. Like everyone else, I leaned forward and listened.

At some point, when everyone was well absorbed in the tale, Beren touched my arm and inclined his head away from the fire. I nodded, and we got up and left the circle.

We drifted to a space that was relatively empty and quiet, around the back of some of the Rohirric companies’ encampments. The ground was scorched and churned up. We laid down our cloaks and sat on them. There was a spring chill in the air, bracing but not bitter.

“I like your hair,” Beren said.

“My—oh,” I said, and I realized that until now he had probably never seen me without my hair bound up beneath my cap. Tonight I was wearing it loose, for what seemed to be the first time in as long as I could remember. “It’s all right, I suppose,” I said. He laughed.

“The stars are nice,” he said. “Before, in—we couldn’t see them at all. The men in my company could have gone up to the barracks to stay, but we chose to camp here. Though a proper bed would have been nice, too,” he added.

I stared up at the sky. “I think you chose right,” I said. I glanced back in the direction of his unit’s fire. “Your friends are wonderful.”

“They’re my brothers. In all of the good ways, and some of the bad, as well. Now all the more, for all we’ve seen together.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Oh, I think you probably could. Isn’t Elloth just as much your sister?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose she is.” I paused. “And Laeron was just as much my brother.”

He drew in his breath. “I didn’t know if you’d want to talk about that.”

“I do,” I said. “Tell me what happened, please.”

“We’ve come full circle, then,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“The first time I met you,” he said. “I was asking you about Tarondor. I wanted to know. And now, you…” He trailed off. “Well, I’m sorry it’s come to that, then. I wasn’t there, you understand. To find someone who was there, you would have to go to the Sixth or the Third infantry, I imagine, as I think they were closer at hand. But this is what I heard.”

“Go on,” I said.

“First, the march was something else, even before the battle. A lot of the men quailed—and not cowardly men, either, and no few from my company; they couldn’t go on. So the King released them, and dispatched them to defend Cair Andros. Laeron could have gone, then, but he didn’t.”

“Nor did you,” I said.

“No, nor did I.” He paused again. “I don’t think I’m so very brave, no more than anyone else. But I’m the sort who likes to see things through to the end.”

“Don’t belittle yourself,” I said. “You’re very brave. So Laeron was brave, too. He also liked to see things through.”

“And so do you, I think.”

“Maybe. Go on.”

“He wasn’t at the front, of course. We wouldn’t have done that, not even then. He was well behind the lines, helping the wounded who had managed to be borne back. And somehow—I don’t know what happened, you can’t really put it all together after the fact—they broke through his part of the lines, and we couldn’t hold them. They just went through…” He trailed off.

“And killed him,” I finished.

“Him and many others, yes.” He shrugged. “I think it would have been quick. Leastwise I hope.”

I nodded. My eyes stung.

“We burned the bodies,” he finished. “It was a wretched thing, to leave any part of them behind at all, in that place, but at least we knew they wouldn’t fall prey to whatever beasts haunt that land.”

Neither of us spoke for a while. I thought about the difference between a quick death and a slow one.

“Thank you for telling me,” I said, finally.

“It’s the least I can do,” he snorted. “The absolute least. You can be angry at me; it’s quite all right.”

“Why would I be angry at you?”

“For living, when he did not. When I was a soldier, and he wasn’t.”

“And he wasn’t a civilian, either. None of us were, Beren. We may not have been fighters, like you, but we weren’t civilians.”

“All right, then.” And although he did not sound entirely convinced by this, he reached over and took my hand. His fingers were warm and rough, as I remembered them. 

“He was brave,” he continued. “Braver than me. I told you that I’m the sort who likes to see things through, that I didn’t take the dispatch to Cair Andros. But that’s not the whole of it.” He paused. “At some point I’d just given myself up for dead. I’d given all of us up for dead. It was easier, that way.”

“I know,” I said.

“Do you?”

“I do.” 

“Anyway, a lot of us felt that way. You could see it in our eyes, I suppose.” He paused and took a breath. “But not Laeron; he was still alive. And he helped me. He helped all of us.”

I sat there for a few moments and took this in. 

“Will you tell that to Valacar?” I asked. “He’s the surgeon to whom Laeron was apprenticed. I think it would make him happy, to hear that.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

We sat in silence for a while, and then I felt myself growing anxious. I had to do it now, I thought, or not at all. Somehow it might be easier here in the dark, where we couldn’t see one another’s faces so well. I squeezed his fingers, and then I dropped his hand.

“I have something to tell you, now,” I began. “A lot of things, actually.”

“All right.”

“Please don’t say anything until I’m finished.”

“I can do that.”

And so I told him everything. About Valacar and the dying man, about the Eastern River soldier with his carved figures, and about Lord Aradîr, and about that night in the rain, in the alley. I told him about Ceorth, and about the dagger that the captain had given me. I told him about the wreck on the First Circle, and that the man was dead, now, and that I knew for sure. I had thought that telling him all this would be very hard, and it was, though to my surprise it grew easier as I went on. After I stopped speaking, we both quiet for a very long time.

“I’m finished, now,” I said.

He was silent for a few moments more. Then he swore, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“When would I have told you?”

“Before I left.”

“Why do you think?” I asked, and I could not stop a note of bitterness from creeping in to my voice. “What good would it have done either of us?”

“I would have killed him,” he said.

“See?” I said. “Little good a charge of murder would have done you. Or me, for that matter.”

“I still wish you’d told me,” he said. “And me, asking if you’d marry me, and teasing you. It must have seemed—”

“You didn’t know,” I said. “It’s all right.” I thought of balancing on the high ramparts, and of emerging from the wreckage of the First Circle soaked in blood that was not my own. I drew myself up a bit. “But now you know what manner of woman I am.”

“And what manner is that?” he asked.

“Very different from the one you first met, I should imagine.”

“And yet not so much, I think.” He reached out as if to touch me, but then stopped himself, as if something had put him off. As I supposed something had. 

“You shouldn’t have stayed, then,” he said. “You should have gone to the coast with the other women—”

“No.” I cut him off. “Because then, for one, I never would have met you.”

He snorted. “That doesn’t seem like much of a fair exchange.”

“It isn’t an exchange. Nothing like that. It’s the past, and it still lingers terribly, but it’s all the past and there’s nothing we can do about it.” I wiped at my eyes with the heel of my hand.

“Well, I’m sorry at any rate,” he said. “I can’t say how sorry I am. And angry, for you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll have your anger, but not your pity.”

“Very well,” he nodded. “I do suppose you are a stronger manner of woman than I might have thought you at first. I’d heard about the collapse on the First Circle. I didn’t know that was you,” he smiled. “You’re very brave, indeed.”

“Maybe. But I did it because I had to.” 

After I said that, I realized that I could not explain that statement, even to myself, much less to Beren. Fortunately he didn’t ask me to, because maybe he understood, after a fashion. He simply nodded again.

We sat quietly for perhaps a minute more, each of us staring into our laps.

Then he said, “And would you still have me?”

I looked up at him, startled. “I think the question is, Beren, would you still have me?”

He snorted, again. “And what manner of man do you think I am?”

“A…” I started. “A good one, I think.” I paused. “Charitable.”

“Not charitable,” he said, and he reached out and took both of my hands between his. “Not in the least. Be assured of that. And even if I were, you wouldn’t need it from me, nor would I expect you to take it. So, the question is still, would you have me?”

“I…would,” I said, surprising myself. “But not right away. Not now.”

He paused, and then he said, “I understand that.”

“I have things I need to do. I need a lot of time.”

“Well, that we have in abundance, now, thanks to the periannath.”

“That we do.” I laughed a little bit. “But, Beren,” I continued. “If you find you can’t or won’t give me that time, if you want a girl who would require less of it, then…I would understand that, as well.”

He put his palm against the side of my face, as I had done with him earlier that day.

“I spent all twenty-three years of my life waiting for Mordor to come knocking at the gates of Minas Tirith,” he said. “And now that it did, I think I can bear to wait a few more for something good.”

And then I laughed, a real laugh, this time, and so did he. I felt warm in spite of the cold ground that lay beneath my cloak.

“So be it, sir,” I said. It was all so strange, to be sitting in the middle of a battle-wrecked field before the City gates. I thought that everything would be strange, from now on. And perhaps that was not such a bad thing.

I got to my feet, and so did he. And then, to my own great surprise I put my hands on his shoulders and went up on my toes just briefly, and kissed him on the mouth.

“So be it,” I repeated, and even through the darkness I had some satisfaction at seeing the stunned expression on his face. And then he smiled again.

“So be it, my lady,” he said.

We gathered up our cloaks and put them over our shoulders. I stared up at the stars, my mind reeling with grief and joy. And we went back to join the others around the fire, by which time Elloth had finished with her tale, and they had long since moved on to other stories.


	22. In Minas Anor

Finally, the women and the children were coming back from the coast. One warm morning, my own family returned. My mother came to meet me in the Houses, as Beren had; she knew well enough where to find me. There she was, my mother, to my unspeakable relief, looking just the same as she always had; worn out from the wait and the journey and from watching over two young boys, certainly, but no more worn out than usual.

“My dear one,” she said, hugging me close. She cupped my face in her hands. “You’re so thin.”

“Mama,” I said, and burst into tears.

***

Almost right away after that, I fell ill despite the mild spring weather. It was only a fever, and it was really nothing at all compared to everything else. Still, my mother took me back to our house with my brother and my cousin and looked after me, and I did not argue with her. Much as I tried to hide it, there was probably something in my eyes that frightened her. She laid her cool, rough hands on my forehead and made me take my meals in bed. We did not talk very much; rather, I did not, but the very thought of her and the boys just in the next room made me so grateful that my body ached.

On the third day of my illness, my brother brought me my tea. He put the mug on the table and sat on top of the covers beside me.

“Be careful,” I said, even as I shifted to make room for him. “You’ll catch this fever from me.”

“It’s all right,” he replied. “Mother says you’re already on the mend.” He touched my brow and nodded. He wore a look of concern and competency that so mimicked our mother’s that my heart nearly broke. “Yes, you are.”

“That’s good.”

“I came in earlier, but you were sleeping. Not easily. Were you having a nightmare?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you remember what about?”

“No,” I lied.

He nodded. “I have bad dreams, too, sometimes.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” he said, and paused, staring out the window. I thought it was an odd moment of thoughtfulness for him; most of the time, you couldn’t pay him all the coin in the City to keep still. “Where there’s a big crowd, and I’m searching for Mother, or for you or Bren”—that was our cousin—“but I can’t find any of you.” 

My mother was unchanged, it was true; but I could have sworn that my brother had grown quite a bit taller. Already I could see in him signs of the handsome young man he would soon become. There were traces of our father in his looks; I favored our mother more in that regard.

He took off his shoes and put his feet up on the bed. “Tell me about the Siege,” he said. “What was it like?”

I closed my eyes. “Ask Bergil,” I said.

“I looked for him yesterday, but I think he was going about on the fields with his uncle. Anyway, why should I have to ask him? You’re my sister, after all.”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Why later?”

“I’m ill, you pest.” I burrowed deeper under the covers.

“Fine.” He folded his arms. “It must have been really bad,” he ventured.

“Yes.”

“When you do tell me, don’t leave out any of the really bad parts. I’m old enough to hear them.”

“Well, that’s right.” I pushed the covers away and reached up to ruffle his hair. It was soft, and long dark strands of it fell in front of his eyes. “You’re eleven, now. I missed your birthday, didn’t I?”

“That’s all right. Soon I’ll be old enough to be a ‘prentice, like you were. Mother thinks I ought to go to the carpenters. Or the wheelwrights.”

“Not the Houses?”

He shrugged. “That doesn’t sound like much fun. I might also like to be a Guardsman, though.”

“You should be a ‘prentice,” I said.

“Can Mother pay for that, do you think?”

“Of course she can. I can help, too. Those of us who stayed on are due a hefty bonus, you know.”

He shook his head. “No, you have to keep that for yourself. Girls need to save up for their dowries.”

“And who told you that?” I asked, surprised at this bit of adult information that he had acquired.

“Romnir says that’s what his mother told him.”

“Ah. Well, don’t worry about that. We will have more than enough for your apprenticeship, and for Bren’s, and for anything else we need.”

He looked skeptical. “Are you sure?”

“I am. Anyway,” I added. “I don’t need a dowry.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course,” I smiled. “I’m so pretty I won’t have to have one.”

“Not with your hair like that,” he laughed.

“Pest,” I repeated, and smacked him with the extra pillow.

***

On the fourth day my fever broke, and I got out of bed and helped my mother with the chores. I kissed her cheek as I went by. Sometimes she sang as she worked, and sometimes we talked, but I was careful around her. She must have seen that something was changed about me; she was my mother, after all. But she did not ask, at least not directly. That was not her way, and I was grateful for that. I knew that if I told her everything, she would most likely blame herself for not making me leave the City with her, and I did not want that at all.

Over the next few weeks there was still much work to be done in our house and everywhere else. The King would arrive in the City in May to be officially crowned, and people hurried to plant flowers and restock pantries and cellars, and of course to clear the last of the rubble away. 

As I took my shifts on the work details, my mind was far away from all of the cleaning and provisioning at hand. I was thinking about the King, of course, and wondering what sort of ruler he would be, and how our lives would be changed with his coming. 

But apart from these expected things, there was something else. It was a seed of an idea, really, and I could not say exactly when it had taken root in my mind. It might have been the moment when I tucked up my sleeves and held my breath and crawled into the wreckage of the gatehouse on the First Circle. It might have been before then, on one of the long grim days I had spent on the wards. Whenever it had been, the notion had been in the back of my mind for quite some time, now. It had been growing stronger and more insistent by the day, especially as I lay feverish in bed. I knew that I had at least to try to honor it.

***

What’s more, I was thinking of Laeron.

“Valacar,” I said. “This is Beren.”

“Sir,” Beren nodded, as the two men clasped hands. I had asked Beren to come up to the Sixth Circle again, and now we were gathered at one of the long tables in the kitchens.

“Well met, Beren,” Valacar replied.

“Beren’s company recently returned from Cormallen,” I said. “He--” I glanced at Beren, who nodded. “He was able to spend some time with Laeron. On the march to the Morannon.”

“Oh?” Valacar said quietly, looking to Beren for confirmation.

“Yes, sir. I—we thought you might like to hear something about that, if you haven’t yet.”

“I—” Valacar said, looking back over at me again. “No, I haven’t.” His gaze shifted back to Beren. “That’s very good of you. Something to drink?”

“That would be nice.”

They settled down, both of them dark-haired and lean, Beren in black and Valacar in grey. I left them sitting across the table from one another as Beren got to talking.

When I came back, Beren had already departed, but Valacar was still sitting at the table. I couldn’t read the expression on his face; he’d gone blank once again. I sat across from him, where Beren had been.

“Is that the one you’re not going to marry?” he asked me.

“I’ll not make any decisions as quickly as I thought I would,” I replied, and he smiled at that. “What do you think of him, then?” I asked.

“What do I think?” He furrowed his brow a bit. “I certainly hope you’re not asking my approval.”

“Never fear,” I said, and he snorted.

“In that case,” he said, “he seems very courteous and well-spoken. And kind. As I said, it was good of him to come and speak to me about Laeron. All in all, a good lad, I should think.”

“I think so, too,” I said. I paused, and then said, “What about you, Valacar? When will you get your post back? Have you heard anything, yet?”

“No,” he said, and his voice was low, and surprisingly free of bitterness. “And not when, but rather if. You would have to ask Lord Aradîr, I suppose, and he is probably busy with more pressing affairs than that at the moment. And far be it from me to take the matter up with him, myself.”

“Oh,” I said.

“At any rate, I suppose it matters little, at this point.”

“Why?”

“What reason have I to remain here?”

“What reason, indeed?” I said, taken aback. “We need you. The Houses need you.”

“Why?” he asked, his voice a bit sharper, now.

“Why? You’re the best we have. And not yet forty, even,” I added, though in truth even thirty-six seemed terribly old to me, no matter what anyone else said. “Everyone knows it. All of the time you’ve spent here, all of the work.”

He shook his head. “There are always others who can do just as well. Better, perhaps. I’m not so important.”

“Don’t you ever decide anything for yourself?” I demanded, surprised at my own anger. It had been lurking to the side of me, but now it met me head on and I embraced it. 

“As I recall, you accused me of not doing what I was supposed to, not so long ago,” he smiled, refusing to rise to the bait.

“What about your father?” I asked. “You said that he sent you here, against your will. And now, you’ll allow yourself to be sent away? You’ll allow him to send you away?”

“I never said that.”

“You told me not to give up,” I continued. “All of those times, when I—” I swallowed. “When I thought that we would all die, and when I thought that perhaps I might want to, myself.” I thought of all my sleepless nights, and all of the food set before me that I had pushed away, untouched. “You wanted to see me well. And I’m not. Not entirely, and not for a very long time. But I haven’t given up. Don’t tell me to do one thing, and then do the opposite, yourself.”

“I’m your elder,” he said. “That’s my prerogative.”

“I’m old for my age,” I said, and I got up and walked away without a backwards glance. 

***

When I went to the Warden’s office the following week, he was busy with a profusion of papers and lists, and he was writing something out very quickly.

“Come in,” he said, absently but not unkindly, when he saw me standing in the open doorway. “How may I help you?”

“If you have a moment, Sir, I’d like to make a request of you.”

“And what might that be?”

“I wish to be released from my post as a healer.”

At that, he stopped writing and looked up at me with the tip of his quill raised just above the paper.

"Is that so?" he asked, putting down the quill and pushing the page aside. "It grieves me to hear that. Though I suppose you're leaving us to be married, then, which is of course cause for congratulations."

"No, sir.” 

“No, indeed?”

I hesitated, and then I told him my idea. I explained what I wanted. I was more nervous than I had supposed I would be, for if he laughed or dismissed me, then it would all be over.

But he neither laughed at me nor asked me to leave. When I was finished, he simply regarded me for what seemed like a very long time, his elbows on his desk and his fingers steepled in front of him.

“Truly?” he asked.

“Truly, sir.”

“I understand, though,” he said, “that you’ve not been well, lately.” And as small a thing as it was, my heart leapt that this was the point of objection that came to his mind before any other.

“I had a fever this past week, but I’m better, now.”

“You know what I mean.” His voice was gentle but insistent.

“I have not been well, sir, nor have many of us here. But I’ve been much improved these past weeks, especially after the news of victory.” He nodded at that. “I think that I’ll have all my strength back very soon.”

“Well,” he said, and he was quiet for what seemed like a very long time after that. “If your assurances are true, which I will trust that they are, I suppose I have no objections.” 

I had to pause for a moment so that I could be sure that he had really said that. Then I smiled. 

“Thank you, sir!”

“However,” he continued. “I have not the authority on my own to approve your request. For that, you’ll have to petition Lord Aradîr.”

“Oh.” For the moment, I could not think of anything else to say.

“I will put your request through to him, with my recommendation, and then I imagine he will want to speak to you, himself.”

***

Several days later, I found myself again walking the halls of the Citadel, though this time, the corridors were crowded and busy. Once again, an attendant showed me to Lord Aradîr’s chamber, which was nearly as I had found it the first time I had spoken to him.

“Good day. Please, sit,” he said when he saw me. I curtseyed, and then sat down in the chair opposite him.

“Good day, my lord,” I said, folding my hands in my lap.

“Are you well?” he asked. “You look better than you did when last I saw you.”

“I am, thank you, sir. I hope we should all look better than we did since then.”

He smiled a little at that. “Indeed. Is your family returned from the coast?”

“They are, safe and sound.” I paused, and then I ventured, “And yours, sir?”

“My wife and children returned last week, thank you. Now,” he continued, “if the Warden tells me correctly, I understand you have a rather unusual petition.” 

“I do.”

He clasped his hands on the desk before him. “You’re aware," he said, "that there have never been any women taken on as surgeons' apprentices in the history of the Houses.”

"I know, my lord." I shifted in my chair. For some reason I felt the urge to apologize for myself, as if the nature of my request were somehow indecent. But I did not. It would probably not help my case.

“And you are also aware that this is so because there is a direct injunction in the Healer’s Canon against such.”

“Yes,” I said, and recited: "And of those women who tend to the wounded and the infirm just as they shall not wield sword in war, neither shall they take a blade to the bodies of those who lie in their care, for their work shall be for the giving of life, and not for the wounding." 

“A fair turn of phrase, and comforting in its way. As are a great many traditions.” He nodded. “Of course you remember.”

I hesitated, and then I said, “I also remember because I broke that rule.”

He smiled faintly. “And with some skill, at that.”

“Thank you.”

“It is common knowledge that laws are often bent or broken in times of dire need, and that this should pass unremarked. I think our reputation abroad is one of severity, especially for this city. Still, we are not so far gone yet that we don’t recognize that necessity, thank the Valar.”

I nodded.

“However,” he continued, “it’s one thing for a woman to take out a scalpel now and again when the wards are overflowing. It would be quite another thing, with respect to the law, to install a woman in a position in which she takes up the knife as her sole vocation. That would require a change in the law itself.”

“I see,” I said. I looked at him for a few moments, but he seemed to be waiting for some further response from me. “May I ask my lord a question?”

“You may.”

“What’s the origin of that law?”

“In all honesty, I don’t know. I would assume, though, that it has its roots in the old Númenorean codes. Perhaps as a safeguard to protect women from the exigency of doing any sort of violence, or even anything that might be interpreted as such. To keep them unsullied, from a certain point of view.”

“Oh.” I considered this for a moment.

“Whatever the reason, it does not seem to have been particularly effective.” 

“And, sir,” I said, suddenly, though I was afraid now that I was getting out of my place. “Why do we follow laws whose reasons we don’t know, or can’t explain?”

He smiled. “Of what is Minas Tirith built?”

“Stone?” I ventured.

“Yes. And also laws. Laws, and codes, and edicts, that reach back to the time of our earliest forefathers. You might say that all these things hold the City together, as surely as does the mortar between the stones, as I believe I told you before. Perhaps even more surely now, having seen the lower circles.”

“Is that a good thing, my lord?”

He sat back. “It is what it is,” he said. “Although,” he added, “with the City very nearly broken, of late, I would not be so surprised to see some of these laws more susceptible to change.”

I leaned forward slightly in my chair. “And is there nothing that you would like to change about the laws, sir?”

“That I would like to change?” He raised his eyebrows in mild surprise at that. Then he looked thoughtful for a few moments. “Not for myself, no,” he replied quietly. He straightened a stack of papers on his desk. “But for others, perhaps, who would see the City rebuilt a better place than she was ere the War.” He paused. “Which is why I support your petition.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

I took a breath. “May I ask my lord…why?”

He smiled. “Not all traditions need be revered as though they were a matter of life and death. Because often, in fact, they are not.” I waited for him to elaborate on that, but he did not. “Also, your Warden speaks very well of you.”

“Thank you, sir, very much.”

He held up a hand. “But now you will have a lesson in City bureaucracy,” he said, and his smile grew rueful. “The Warden has sent you up to me, and now I am bound to take up the matter with the Steward’s council, for it would entail a change to City laws. I have passed your request up to the Citadel. The final ruling belongs to the Steward and the councilors, and I will make a case for your request to them.”

I nodded.

“And you,” he said, setting down his stack of paper, “will accompany me when I do.”

“Sir?”

“In about a quarter-hour’s time,” he finished, standing up. He was not smiling, now, but something told me he might as well have been. “Come along, then.”

***

“This way,” Aradîr said as we walked down the corridor, our footsteps echoing.

“Sir,” I began, picking up my pace to keep up with him. “Will they listen to me? The councilors, I mean. And the Steward?”

“Of course he will. At least as much as he would listen to me, at any rate. I am, in the end, only minor aristocracy.” His tone was light, but I could not tell whether or not he was in jest.

“With all due respect,” I said, “what does that make me?”

He stopped then, and so I stopped as well, and he looked me in the eye. He ran a hand through his hair, and his wedding rings gleamed briefly in the afternoon light. “Whatever you want,” he said.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, my lord.”

“You will,” he said. “One day. Now, come along.”

***

I had imagined myself staring down a long table full of grim-faced men in the Hall of Kings. However, to my relief, the Steward had set up his operations in a small anteroom off the Hall, and there were but a few men sitting with him when the esquire ushered me and Aradîr inside. A pair of attendants were leaving as we arrived, and they briefly acknowledged Aradîr. Faramir and the men who were with him—the councilors, I assumed—were seated at one end of a broad table. I recognized among them Lord Tarnion, who had lost his son to an orc-spear on the walls during the Siege. The table’s surface was almost indiscernible under many stacks of papers of various shapes and sizes, along with a few books. 

The Steward was in close conference with a young man who stood next to him, their heads bent over a particularly large sheet of paper. The young man was nodding and making notes.

“No,” Faramir was saying, “even with that, I should think the bulk of your crews would best be diverted to the Gate, and to the southeast section of the Second Circle.” He pointed to a spot on the paper. “And be sure the men bearing supplies are given free passage up and down the higher circles.”

“Very good, sir,” said the young man.

“My thanks, Herion” said Faramir. “You’re free to go.” As the young man got up to leave, the Steward glanced up. He looked tired, but almost pleasantly so, as if he were in the midst of taking much-needed exercise. 

“Lord Aradîr,” he nodded. “What news from the Houses?”

“My lord,” Aradîr said, bowing briefly before handing him a paper of his own. “As you know, the Houses are still well-provisioned. The herb stores, however, are all but depleted, and the gardens yield little at this time. The Warden has dispatched gathering-parties with leave to go as far afield as they see fit. Meanwhile, staff are being lent to fill out work details as they are able, and all workers have been given leave to return to their homes, provided that they are habitable.”

Faramir scanned the paper before giving it back to Aradîr. “Very good. Thank you.” He looked at me. “I take it that this is the young lady you mentioned at your last report?”

“It is, my lord.”

I dropped a curtsey, and said, “My liege.”

He nodded, and said, “I know your face from the Houses. One of Ioreth’s pupils, are you not?”

“Sometimes, sir.”

“I understand you have a point of contention, as it were, with your healer’s oath.”

I was not sure what to say to that, so I looked at Aradîr, who nodded. “That she does.”

“And you wish to be apprenticed as a surgeon?” asked the Steward.

I curtseyed again.

He said, “Please, both of you, be seated.” Aradîr and I did as we were told, taking chairs directly opposite the Steward and councilors. “Do you know the history of the Healer’s Canon?” Faramir asked.

“Not really, sir, no,” I admitted.

“Nor did I, until yesterday, when I bade one of my esquires look into it. The library has just recently been unlocked. He spent the better part of the day with only dust and scrolls for company, poor man, but he emerged successful.” He reached for a particularly yellowed looking roll of parchment behind a high stack of papers that sat to his right. With a careful, practiced movement he unrolled it and laid it on the table, weighting its curling edges with a book at one end and an inkwell at the other. The men seated nearest him glanced over at it. From where I sat, I could see that the ink was faded and the writing was thin and ornate.

“It is a most interesting history,” the Steward continued. “Even its current form is a relic from our distant past, from the days of Arvedui and Fíriel.”

“The old Kings?” I remembered that Fíriel was indeed a queen’s name, and that perhaps the mother of our own Fíriel in the Houses had seen something regal about her at her birth; she was lovely and strong, after all.

“Yes. It was Arvedui’s marriage to Fíriel that united the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. It was also through this marriage that Arvedui laid claim to Gondor’s throne, for under the old law of Númenor, Fíriel could have been a Ruling Queen.”

I was surprised at the thought of a Ruling Queen; I could not remember if I had ever heard of such a thing. And while I liked hearing the Steward speak about these matters, I wondered what they might have to do with our Canon.

“But this claim was denied by Pelendur. You have heard that name, before?”

“Yes, my lord. But he was not a King, was he?”

“No, indeed. He was one of my predecessors. Not a Ruling Steward, but a King’s Steward.” And here he paused, and smiled a little. “A King’s Steward, like me. While surely he had many reasons for denying the claim of Arvedui and Fíriel, the one upon which he chose to lean most heavily was the fact that Gondor was a kingdom at war. And a kingdom at war, he said, would fare poorly under the hand of a woman; it needed the rule of a King, and not a Queen.”

He placed a few fingers lightly over the parchment before him. “And that, gentlemen and lady,” he continued, looking at me and Aradîr and at his few councilors in turn, “seems to be where we find this strange under-note in our history. For it was shortly after Pelendur’s choice that the Healer’s Canon was set to paper in its current form, with an odd injunction that appears nowhere before, forbidding women healers from taking up the knife, as if forbidding them from going to battle. And though Arvedui and Fíriel are nowhere mentioned by name, we might best infer that here is an echo, a warning meant to remind us that we are indeed the citizens of a warring kingdom. A man’s kingdom, and not a woman’s,” he added, with a pointed glance at me. “I would not be surprised to find any number of other like-minded amendments to our codes around this period, in similar language. If one were not lacking in time, it would be interesting to make a study of it,” he said.

“However,” he continued, placing his palm over the scroll as if to obscure its contents, “this is but prelude and history to the matter at hand.” Once more he looked at me, as did the men seated beside him. “So tell us, please, why it is that you wish to be a surgeon.” There was perhaps a hint of a challenge in that request, but no scorn or mocking.

I returned his gaze, which was steady but not fierce, and then I glanced at Aradîr and at the councilors and at the ancient parchment on the table. I took a breath, and began.

"I see the need of it, my lord. Gondor has lost so many young men, and most of those that yet remain are more skilled in battle and defense than in healing, I think." 

Faramir nodded, but said nothing, and I went on. "I think it's the best thing I can do to serve my City. I saw so much, during the Siege and after; I worked on the wards, and also in the surgery, for a great many hours. I think I would do well."

"The Warden seems to agree with you on that count. He speaks highly of you, as does the Master of the Houses," said the Steward, though the tone of his voice betrayed no decision as yet. Once again he glanced at Aradîr. 

“That’s true,” Aradîr said.

"And your devotion to our City makes me glad,” the Steward continued. “Have you no other reasons, then?"

In fact, I had, but I did not know how I ought to say them, or if I should say them, at all. There was the logic of flesh and bones, the way joint fit to joint and tendon to muscle, and the way I had come to appreciate this above many other, thinner, kinds of reason. There was the weight and the balance of the knife in my hand, and I liked that too, although I sometimes found the thought of it frightening. I liked the thought of having the capacity to control, as well as to comfort, and to close up the things that had been split apart and to stare into the stark mystery of blood as if staring down a deep well.

The War had bruised me, too, of course. I had shed my own blood, and I had the scar to prove it where the stitches once had been. And all the others, as well, not so easily visible. I would never understand why, but perhaps I could better understand how.

I still wanted the things I had wanted before all of this--quiet, comfort; the smell of baking bread, a small house, and maybe a husband and children. Before, I might have thought that walking open-eyed through a war would have sent me running into the arms of those desires, but now they were blunted. They were still there, but not so urgent. I would wait for them, as I had told Beren. Before I had any of these things, I wanted a scalpel between my fingers. There was a pleasure to that weight, strange but sure, and it was the only way I could see myself going forward.

And of course there was Laeron.

I thought of all these things, but then I said, "Our country, our City--it’s been broken, my lord, but not destroyed. I think that now we must all have a hand in building it back up, of old stones but also of new. And for me, to heal and help its people, in a way that I see fit for myself—I think that that will be my own small part in the building, though I had not the good fortune to be born a boy.” Here I glanced at Aradîr, and then looked back at the Steward. “The lore of surgeons is not that of warfare, and I think that a woman may learn it just as well as a man, provided that she has a steady hand and a sound mind. Which I do. And I don't want to stop learning, sir." 

And this was also the truth.

The Steward considered me, and though he could not have looked at me for more than a few moments, it felt like several years’ time. His eyes were sharp and searching, but not unkind, and I did not feel compelled to look away.

Finally, he said, “And so you shan’t.” He looked at each of his councilors in turn, and then back at me and Aradîr. “You know very well,” he said, “that you would be the only woman among a great many men. Would you be ready to hold your own among them?”

“I would, sir,” I replied.

Then he removed his palm from the parchment and considered it once again. “The rest of the tale is as follows: Gondor did indeed have the King that Pelendur deemed it should, and this was Eärnil, sire to Eärnur.”

“The last King,” I said.

“Yes. And because he cared only for the battles that so harried our land, he never took a wife, and died without an heir. So it fell to my house to watch over a kingdom with no king.” And here he paused, and smiled. “But the line of Arvedui and Fíriel continued in the North, and now, nearly a thousand years hence, one of that line comes again to claim the throne of Gondor. And I daresay that this time, no one disputes his claim, at the very least not the current Steward.”

“Nor his council,” said one of the men seated next to Faramir, speaking up for the first time.

“Indeed,” said the Steward, and then he looked at me once more. “Which is all a rather lengthy way of saying that I have good reason to deem this injunction obsolete. For there is no longer any reason to season our laws with tokens intended to warn away claimants descended from one who would have been a Queen. And more than that, Gondor is no longer a warring kingdom. We sit not in Minas Tirith, but in Minas Anor.”

“Minas Anor, my lord?” I asked.

“The old name for the City, before Osgiliath fell,” Lord Tarnion put in. “The Tower of the Sun.”

“‘Minas Tirith’ means ‘the Guard Tower,’ and we no longer need serve as unwilling sentries against the strength of Mordor,” said the Steward. “I hope that the City will regain its glory of old, with the strength of that which is new, and young. It will be a different City, with need for all manner of Men. And all manner of women,” he added, smiling. “The council has heard the petition. Have you any objections?” he asked the men seated on his side of the table. They glanced at me, and then at one another. Tarnion murmured something in his neighbor’s ear.

“We have not, my lord,” said the man sitting to the Steward’s right.

“Very well. So, lady, if this is the manner in which you would stand in the sunlight, then far be it from us to stand in your way.”

“My lord?” I asked.

“The council approves your petition,” said Aradîr. I looked at him and he was smiling.

“Thank you, sir, my lords,” I said. A strange feeling, dizzying and warm, spread through me.

“You are most welcome,” said Faramir. He drew a blank piece of paper from a nearby stack and dipped a quill in the inkwell that still weighted down the yellow parchment. He began to write. “I will declare the Healer’s Canon to be amended, in reflection of the changes we have discussed. Therefore, you may be taken on as a surgeon’s apprentice, as may any other woman who wishes and who is seen fit.” He paused, and looked at me again; I had been looking at what he was writing. “You are lettered, I assume.”

My stomach knotted up a bit. “No, not really, sir,” I admitted. “Is that a problem?”

“It is,” he said, “but far from an insurmountable one. Is there anyone amongst your fellows who can help you learn to read and write?”

“There is, I am sure,” Aradîr said, nodding at me.

“That’s well,” said Faramir. “This will be one of the conditions of your apprenticeship,” he said to me. “Lord Aradîr and your Warden will decide on the others,” he said, looking at Aradîr.

Aradîr nodded. “You will start with a twelve-months’ trial,” he said to me, “and continue as your master sees fit.”

“And is there a surgeon who will be amenable to taking her on?” asked one of the councilors.

“There will be, surely,” Aradîr replied.

Something else that I had been keeping in my mind now came to the forefront. In a very few seconds, I weighed up my chances, and then I made my gamble.

“I’d like to have Valacar,” I said. Aradîr looked at me, and I met his eyes. “He lost his apprentice at the Morannon.”

“I know the name,” said the Steward, finishing what he was writing. “The Warden speaks highly of him, too, I believe.”

“As do we all, my lord,” I put in. My voice was perhaps a bit too urgent, for the Steward stopped writing and looked at me then.

“You spoke to me about him briefly, did you not, Aradîr?” he asked, looking over his paper.

“I did, sir,” said Aradîr, looking at me. I stared back at him, hoping that my face was impassive. “There was a matter of disagreement.”

“Everyone speaks very highly of him,” I repeated. “He was of great help during the Siege. And after.” A few of the councilors were looking at us now; Tarnion seemed to be eyeing Aradîr with particular interest. I held my hands folded in my lap, and my palms prickled with sweat.

Aradîr’s expression did not change, but he took a breath, and said, “So he was.”

“And this matter of disagreement,” the Steward said, looking at us once more. “It is not something the council ought to concern itself with, is it?”

“No, it is not,” Aradîr said, after a moment. “A misunderstanding only. Valacar will take you on as his apprentice,” he said to me, “if both he and the Warden agree to it. If not, other arrangements will be made.”

Faramir considered both me and Aradîr for a few long moments. My heart felt as though it was going to beat its way out of my chest, and I hoped I did not show it. Then the Steward said, “Very well. The council thanks you for bringing this matter to its attention.” He picked up a stick of sealing wax and held it to a candle’s flame above the document he had just written, letting a small amount of it drip carefully on to the paper near the bottom edge. “The last thing remaining is to send your petition up to the King for his ultimate approval. Of course, he will have a great deal to do upon his entrance to the City; still, I expect you will see his answer in no more than two or three years’ time.”

“My lord?” Aradîr and I both said, nearly in unison.

“Joke,” said Faramir, and he smiled and pressed his ring into the soft wax, marking the paper with the Steward’s seal. “You may begin your apprenticeship pending further approval, and as your Warden sees fit. My thanks. You’re free to go.”

***

Outside the anteroom, Aradîr said, “Take a walk with me.” We went down one of the Citadel corridors that led out to the courtyard.

“That was well done,” he said. “In another life, you would have made a fine councilor.”

I said nothing, not sure of how to respond. My palms were still cool with sweat.

“You like Valacar very well, don’t you?” he asked.

“A great many people do, my lord,” I said.

“Yes, a great many people do,” he said, stopping. We were alone at a juncture of two hallways. “And it is true that this War and its ending have laid to waste any number of cares that seemed grave before it. But still, there are some that may know more than they should,” he added, looking me in the eye.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.” It was true that I did have more knowledge than I should, about a great many things. But I was not sure which of these things he was referring to, if any, at all.

“No, I’m sure you don’t,” he said, and he smiled. It was a wan expression, different from the way he had looked when he had told me the petition had been approved. “At any rate, accept that as a favor from me. And now you owe me a favor, as well.”

“What would that be, my lord?”

“I’ll show you.”

We made our way down the corridor, and out to the courtyard. There, we—or rather, Aradîr—were greeted with cries of “Father!” and the frantic pounding of feet on ancient flagstones. Aradîr knelt down to gather up the little boy and girl who flung themselves at him, laughing and chattering. Their voices echoed against the high walls.

“Father, we got to see the Swan Knights, and Níneth’s cousin, all in their armor—”

“What will have for supper?”

“—their horses were so big, and the banners—”

“I’m very hungry already!”

He embraced and kissed them, and ruffled their hair the way that I did with my own brother. His smile seemed to have become real, again.

Behind the children, a tall and very lovely woman in a green dress approached. She walked with her arms folded, and there was a calmness and self-possession in her movements that bespoke nobility, as if she could be compelled to hurry for no one but herself. Standing beside her was a slender girl about my age—a nursemaid, I supposed. 

“Not so loud in the Citadel, children,” the woman admonished, and her voice was gentle and commanding at once. She glanced at me, an expression of mild curiosity on her face.

Aradîr stood up with the smaller of the two children in his arms. The other one leaned against his leg and stared openly at me, his fingers in his mouth. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said to his wife. “The meeting with the council was longer than I had expected.”

“It’s quite all right,” she replied. “We had Níneth for company,” she added, nodding towards the girl, who gave a shy smile. “Your petition?” she asked, looking again at me.

“Success,” he replied.

“Congratulations,” she said, and nodded in my direction. The nursemaid raised her eyebrows and smiled at me, not quite so shyly this time.

“Thank you, my lady,” I said, and dropped a curtsey. When she turned back to her husband, I shrugged and returned Níneth’s smile.

Aradîr looked at me, and said, “Will you please show my wife to the guest quarters near the houses? She and the children returned to our home but have since found it ill-prepared as yet.”

“Of course, sir.”

“She will meet you at the Sixth Circle,” he said to his wife. “You may go there now, if you like. We have some business yet to discuss.”

“Very well,” she nodded, throwing another glance at me, with the same curiosity as before. “Come along, we’ll see Father again, soon,” she said to the children. The nursemaid took them by the hand. “My thanks,” she said to me, and Aradîr and I watched them as they left the courtyard.

“Is that the favor you would have of me, sir?” I asked, once again confused.

He smiled, shaking his head. “Mark this,” he said, lowering his voice. “This,” he continued, gesturing towards the spot where his wife and children and their nurse had stood a moment before, “is my life, now, regardless of what may lie in the past. I intend to be Master of the Houses of Healing for a very long time. It is a new City, as the Steward said, and we are all of us in need of allies. Do I have one in you?”

“I would hardly think that you would need an ally in the likes of me, sir,” I said, surprised.

“That may be true. But I would like to have your assurances, all the same.”

“I…” I looked at him. “You have them, sir.”

“Very well.”

We were both quiet for a few moments. I wondered what we had both just agreed to.

“Sir?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“You said you had done me a favor. What was the favor: supporting my petition, or letting Valacar…allowing me to be his apprentice?”

“A bit of both, I suppose.” He looked at me. “You’re not satisfied with that answer.”

“Maybe not, my lord.”

“Allow me to put your mind at ease, then. Supporting your petition was just as much a favor to me as it was to you. And to the Houses, as well. You spoke true: there are needs that must be filled, lest the Houses suffer.” I said nothing, and he continued. “What’s more, you have talent. As does Valacar, in abundance. I may be neither healer nor surgeon, as your goodwives would have it, but I’m not blind to that.

“But more than that, you have some ambition in you. I can see that plainly. I can see it even in those of you women who have it, though you may hide it behind your smiles and bury it beneath your embroidery, as you are taught. And stifle it though you may, it will always have out, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. As often it is in men, though women have their own ways. A good lord or a good captain knows to train that ambition, and, if need be to temper it in doing so, no matter how lowly the quarter from which it arises. He does this, so that he is not overmastered by it later when it grows beyond his watch.” He paused. “Do we understand one another?”

I swallowed, taken aback. “Yes, I think so, sir.”

“Good.” He paused. “My wife is very clever. You’ll find her good company, I’m sure.”

“I’m…sure I will, my lord.”

“You should rest up. You have a very trying year ahead of you.”

“I’m sure that is true, though most likely not more trying than the previous one.”

He smiled. “No, most likely not.” He looked away from then, and towards the dead tree in the center of the courtyard. “They say it will bloom, again. What do you think of that?”

“I suppose we can only hope that’s true, sir.”

“‘Seven stars, and seven stones…’” he recited. 

“…and one white tree,” I finished, not even aware that I was interrupting until a moment later.

Aradîr, however, seemed to take no offense. He only smiled. “Yes, I suppose we can only hope. Remember our talk. Be you well,” he said, and he turned to walk back inside the corridors of the Citadel through which we had come.

“And you, my lord,” I said, and dropped a curtsey.

He went back inside. I lingered, staring at the tree, its white limbs curling upwards, as if to cradle sun and sky between their branches. 

“Minas Anor,” I said, to no one in particular. And then I smiled, and ran all the way back down to the Sixth Circle to tell Valacar.


	23. To Rebuild Them (3019/3020)

April.

The surgeon steps up to the door of the small neat house on the Fifth Circle. He stands there for what feels like a very long time before he forces himself to knock. In one of his hands is a pitifully small bundle; it contains a combination of the items that his apprentice left behind in the Houses, and the things that the Sixth Infantry soldiers took from his corpse on the ashy ground at the Black Gate. Some handkerchiefs and a deck of playing cards; a whetstone, a few spare tunics, and the grey surcoat that marked him for a surgeon, the white apprentice’s stripe at the shoulder. There were letters; of course he left letters. They always do.

Anendil, the captain of the unit to which Laeron was attached, would have come to visit the family first. Valacar is mightily grateful that that responsibility did not fall to him; at the same time he reckons himself a coward for feeling that relief.

It’s the mother who comes to the door. He’s met her before. She was a youthful, handsome-looking woman, quick with a smile and a kind word. Now, her face is worn and lined. When she sees him, her expression goes blank with the wide-eyed emptiness that Valacar recognizes from the wounded men they lay on his table in the Houses.

He says her name, and then the only other thing that he can think to say: “I’m sorry.”

She slaps him.

The shock stings more than the blow. Well, he thinks. Seems about right. It would appear that this is his season to be struck by women. He sets her son’s things down at her feet, and leaves.

The next day she sends a message up to the Houses, asking to speak to him. They sit in her kitchen.

“I don’t know what came over me,” she says, staring into her teacup. Her skin is fair, like Laeron’s was, and she is flushed now with shame and weariness. She glances up at him. “Will you forgive me?”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“He always spoke well of you. He admired you very much, you know. He took great pride in his work.” She smiles as much as she can manage. “Thank you for being so good to him.”

Valacar nods. “He…” What could he say, that could possibly mean anything to this woman? He was a good boy? He was kind? He was brave? He did not die in vain? He wonders if that last one is true. The rest are.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better apprentice,” he says, finally. She closes her eyes.

With an abrupt movement, she gets up from her chair and goes into the next room. When she returns there is a familiar sheaf of folded papers in her hand.

“These were among the things you gave me,” she says. “Perhaps you didn’t see them. I didn’t read any of them, only the one meant for me.”

Tied together with string are a few letters. One of them has his name written on the front in Laeron’s neat, cramped handwriting.

“Will you see to it that these go to whom they’re addressed? I believe they’re all in the Houses.”

“Yes, of course.” He glances through the names.

When he goes back up to the Sixth Circle, the girl who is to take Laeron’s place as his apprentice is sitting in the kitchens, sewing and talking with a few of the other young women. They rest their elbows on the table, play with the handles of spoons and teacups. Seeing her, head bent over her needle and thread, he is struck with an odd mixture of grief and pride, both for her and for the young man who will not return. 

He catches her eye and motions her over. She gets up and crosses to where he is standing, her sewing still clutched in one hand. He can see that the cloth is the same grey that he wears now: it’s the surcoat that will mark her for a surgeon, a white apprentice’s stripe on one shoulder. She must be hemming it up or taking it in, he thinks.

“I’ve been to see Laeron’s mother,” he says. “He left this for you.” He holds out a letter, and she takes it in her free hand and stares at it. “Would you like me to read it out for you?” he asks.

She thinks for a moment, and then replies, “Thank you, no. I think I’ll wait until I can read it, myself.”

“Very well,” he nods. He has seen her laboring over books and papers lately, quill in hand, brow furrowed in concentration. Sometimes he sits with her and helps. One of the other girls wanders over, teacup still in hand.

“Elloth,” he says, and hands her a letter of her own. “That’s for you. From Laeron.”

“Oh.” She takes it and puts it in her pocket with scarcely a look. He can’t fault her, can’t fault either of the girls. When he goes back to his own room, he will place his own missive, unopened, on the top of the bookcase, and pour himself a drink.

***

May.

Finally, it’s Coronation Day. Nearly Coronation Evening, by this time. The City smells of fresh flowers and sweet wine. Songs seem to waft from each courtyard and open window, and banners stream from the white walls on every circle. Young people drift through the revelries unchaperoned. Though at this point, Beren finds the very notion of a chaperone to be patently absurd. Insulting, even. He handled himself well enough on the City walls and at the Morannon without some doughty goodwife trailing behind him, thank you very much. With every watch and every rally, his captain trusted him with the lives of his fellows. Surely he can be trusted alone with a young lady; and she with him, for that matter.

“Did you get to see very much?” he asks the young lady in question. Her dress is the Dol Amroth blue that will prove to be most popular with the women of Minas Tirith this spring, not to mention with many of the men. This, along with the rich green of the Rohan banners, and the black and silver that Beren himself wears proudly on his dress uniform, will be most in demand when the weavers and dyers open their shop windows once more. The Season of the West, they will call it. Small white flowers are woven through her dark hair. She looks, he thinks, absolutely lovely.

“I did,” she replies. “At first we were standing behind one of the éoreds, with their shields and their spears; you know how tall the Rohirrim are. But one of the young Riders took pity on us, and let us stand in front. What about you?”

“My company was fortunate—we had a fine view. Did you see Mithrandir?”

“The old man?” she smiles. “Wizard. Or, whatever he is, I suppose. Yes, I did.”

“We did, too.”

The sun is setting; all over the City, torches are being lit, meals laid out on tables, and the tempo of the music picks up, as if in anticipation of dancing. Beren thinks that if he does not get to sleep tonight, it will be quite all right. He wants to breathe in as much of this day as he can, hold it in his lungs for as long as possible. He smiles at the girl, and offers her his arm as they walk together. She takes it, leaning in to him slightly, and his heart speeds up a bit.

They’re not exactly courting, and they’re certainly not betrothed. He’s not really sure what to call it. They’ve walked together through gardens and wreckage. They sit across from one another at tables, sipping strong tea—those long wooden tables built for healers, soldiers and kitchen girls, and all those people who keep the City safe and warm in their own small ways. He is careful with her—most of the time he won’t so much as kiss her cheek without permission, spoken or implied. Sometimes he worries that his actions verge on a parody of affected chivalry, but she has never said anything. 

On the Fifth Circle, where they now are, the festivities are concentrated in a series of honeycombed courtyards that branch off from the market square. They stop in one of these smaller spaces to listen to a particularly lively pair of musicians—a fiddler and a harpist. She puts her head against Beren’s shoulder and drapes an arm about his waist. In response, he turns and plants a kiss on her brow. She sighs, her breath warm against his throat, and that about does it for him.

“Should we step out?” he whispers in her ear, and she nods, smiling. He likes this, too, this mixture of shyness and ardor that she seems to have. 

He looks around, then leads them through a narrow archway, into the shaded corner of the next courtyard over. A low wall partially muffles the music and the chatter.

He puts his arms about her and leans in for a kiss. He can taste the honey-laced tea and the sugared cake she had at lunch time; sweetness seems to be the order of the day, at least in the kitchens. She hesitates for a moment, and then returns the kiss, twining her arms around his neck. She pulls away slightly to glance up at him, smiling, and then she stands on her toes to kiss him again.

His right hand trails down to brush her hip, and he bends his head to put his lips to her neck. She sighs again. Without thinking, he shifts his weight, backing her gently into the wall on the side of the archway.

As soon as her shoulders touch the stone, her body goes rigid and she pushes him away in one sharp movement. She stands with her arms folded tightly over her chest. The look on her face shocks him, her eyes wide with animal terror, perhaps a hint of rage lurking behind them.

Then she unfolds her arms and shuts her eyes. He thinks she is trembling.

“Sorry,” she says.

“What—”

“It’s not your fault. It’s me.” She takes a breath, opens her eyes and looks at him again. “I suppose I don’t like having my back to the wall,” she adds, quietly.

“Oh,” he says. Then: “Valar. I’m sorry.” He feels ill.

She sinks down a low bench nearby. He sits beside her.

“I’m not what you’d call happy, Beren, even now.” Her tone is plain, with no self-pity in it, as if she were passing on an unremarkable piece of information. “Not for more than a few hours at a time, at least.”

“Me, neither, sometimes,” he says. “But it’s better than not at all. And you make me happy,” he adds.

Her smile is wan, but, from what he knows of her, unforced. “And you, me.” She pauses. They listen to the music and the noise of the crowd drifting over the wall. “Sometimes, I think I’m all in pieces,” she says. 

He responds, truthfully, “So do I.”

She reaches for his hand. He closes both of his palms over hers, his skin roughened by sword calluses, and hers by endless soap and water.

With the fingers of her free hand she pulls down the neckline of her blue dress a little. “I’ve got a scar, here,” she says, indicating a spot below her collarbone not far from where he kissed her a few moments ago. “Just a small one.”

He leans over to look where she is pointing. It’s the thinnest of marks, just paler than the rest of her skin. He wouldn’t have known it was there if she hadn’t told him.

“It’s from a carving knife,” she says.

“ _Valar_ ,” he repeats. He does not know what else to say, and so they are silent for a few moments. Then he says, “It’s not so bad to have scars, you know.”

She looks at him. “No?”

“It means you survived.”

She tightens her grip on his hand. They sit quietly, and somewhere behind them the song changes, and a new one begins. A reel. Beren recognizes it; it’s an old tune, but good, with a quick strong rhythm.

“Do you dance?” he asks her.

She smiles. “Not well,” she admits.

“Lots of time to practice.” Still holding her hand, he stands up and turns so he is facing her. She considers this for a moment, and then she rises to join him.

***

June.

Spring passes into summer, and Ceorth lingers in the Houses of Healing. The people are kind enough, especially that girl, the healer, with whom he’s struck an odd sort of friendship. Still, he feels out of place here; how could he not? The problem is that, somehow, he feels even more out of place among his own countrymen when they come to visit him. It is a comfort to be among his people, to slip back into the rhythms of his native tongue. But when they ask him to come back down with them to the éored-camps, he declines, for reasons he can’t name to himself.

He does not presume to think that it’s his grief that sets him apart; how could it be? He’s far from the only one to have lost scores of kinsmen and friends, far from the only one to have given up a limb in battle. It still aches, all of it, and even when he does not look directly at the pain it is still there, like a bright thing just on the edge of his vision—but no matter. Surely they all feel that.

In a way the grief is easier to understand than what lies beyond it, an emptiness that he can’t quite fathom. He is not at home, here, it’s true, but neither would he be at home in Edoras, or back in the Westfold, for that matter. In all his life, there was only one small point on the map that he has ever called home. It is gone forever, now, and by all rights he should be lying in ash with it, with his brother and his wife and their little girl. With Maethwyn, for whose hand he had meant to ask, come harvest time. But he is not lying in ash. He is here, and he is alive.

The girl, his friend, has been learning to read. She tells him about the history of her people, the lists of cities and rulers, and the strange ways in which their lines diverged and came back together. When she tells these tales, her voice is formal, tentative; very different from the way the Éorlingas are given to chanting the names of their kings, the sounds rich and rolling. In many the ways the Gondorrim are a strange people to him, and yet he finds them intriguing. And he envies them, at least for the obstinacy of their stone City that withstood fire and volleys, crumbling though some parts of it may be. They know where their home is.

He is getting better on the crutches, going about the wards and careful to keep out of everyone’s way as he does so. In the afternoon, he notices another one of the girls, the one who had sat beside him on the bench in the garden during the toasts. She had smelled of fresh herbs and lavender water. She’s pretty—beautiful, he must admit to himself—but that is not the first thing he notices. It’s her stillness, both of her body and her gaze as she stands in the dispensary, sleeves pushed up to reveal pale arms. She sees him looking, fixes him with steady grey eyes.

“Hello,” she says.

***

July.

There is much to do and much to prepare. Even so, the White Lady of Rohan has found time to return to the Houses of Healing now and again, particularly to the gardens. Some weeks ago, one of the surgeons here looked at her left arm one last time, pronounced it mended, and helped her slip it free of its sling. It is weak, but whole, and he assured her that it would grow strong again in time.

“Strong enough to bear a shield?” she asked him mildly. One must find a way to measure these things, after all.

To his credit, he smiled, and said, “If my lady wishes.”

She visits, when she can, with the men of the Mark who yet remain in the Houses. She visits, too, with the Warden and with the surgeons and healers and herbalists who labor here. She would be a healer, she told Faramir. And so she will, after her own fashion. She is already acquainted with the uses of remedies and herbs, the necessities of splints and bandages, from her long years as lady of her uncle’s house. More than that, she knows all too well the wages of battle and illness, the way they can sow rage and reap grief. What she has learned in these wards, is time.

She speaks to the healers as they work. She listens to what they have to say about the consistency of bone and the properties of a bitter draught, the blessing of patience. Of slowness. Time serves not merely to age and rot, to turn the seasons beyond our control. Time can heal, and temper. It can bring us about to the place in which we were meant to dwell. This is all good. It will all help.

She will return soon to Rohan, to lay her uncle in the earth beside his forbears. And, she hopes, to begin to help her land to heal, to aid her brother at the start of his long endeavor. There are crops to be sown, and later mares to foal, villages to rebuild. To glimpse these things, even if only their beginnings, will do her well. And then she will set forth once more.

For the time being she must say farewell, to Faramir and also to this strange City of his, which has claimed a piece of her heart in these intervening months. She sits with a young man from the Westfold; he lost his leg at the Pelennor, but is healing well. They speak in their own language.

Théoden-king’s funeral party departs for Edoras in three days’ time, she tells him. He may have passage with them, if he wishes.

When the young man is silent, she tries to alight on the source of his hesitation. He may very well harbor the doubts shared by many a wounded Rider.

“There is much to be done in the Mark,” she says. “Be assured that you would have a place there, and work worthy of one still young and strong, if you wish it.”

“Thank you, my lady,” he says. “I know that’s true. Forgive me,” he continues, “but—I’m not yet decided.” He pauses. “My heart will always be in the Mark, but there is something about this place that I like. I would see more of it, before I return to Rohan.”

She thinks about this for a moment, and then she asks, “Reasons of your own?”

“Aye, my lady,” he says, and then he smiles. “Reasons of my own.”

“Very well,” she says, and returns his smile. “You have time yet to decide. The Warden will send your message along to Éothain, should you change your mind.” She pauses. “Next year I may also have need of men in Ithilien. If you think you may be willing, I will make a note of your name.”

He considers this. “I may be. Thank you.”

“Fare you well, Ceorth.”

“And you, my lady.”

Later in the afternoon, she sees the young girl who waited on her while she lingered in the Warden’s rooms, facing East. Small and solemn, she seemed then. That time already seems grey and flat in her memory, now, a dream half-recalled. In April, Faramir told her about the girl’s petition to the council. Later he told her about what he had found in the yellowed scrolls, about the thwarted Queen, the kingdom at war, and the rules that resulted from the Steward’s choice.

“And your healers yet follow those laws, made for that time?” she asked him.

“It would seem they do,” he replied. “What say you to that?”

She thought for a moment. “I say, let the maiden take up the knife, if you deem her worthy. You must change those laws and loose those bindings that constrain you for no good reason.” She smiled. “You taught me that.”

“And you, me.” He kissed her, then. “My thoughts, exactly.”

She sees now that the girl has indeed taken up the knife; she is wearing the grey of a surgeon.

“My lady,” she says, dropping a curtsey. “I hear you’re to take your leave of us soon.”

“That’s true. Though I hope soon to return, as well.” She smiles. “My thanks to you and your people, for the aid and succor you have given us, here.”

“And our thanks to you and your people.”

She reaches into the plain cloth bag she carries at her side, draws out a small object, and gives it to the girl. “Our men and women craft them,” she explains, “around the fire, and sometimes come festival-times. One of our men brought them to Éomer-king from Edoras, after the roads were made safe. We should like your people to hang them in your houses as we do ours, should it please you, to remember the friendship of the Éorlingas.”

The girl looks at the item: a simple circle, woven of straw. She cannot tell where the strands begin and end. In her hand it feels light but strong. She smiles.

“Thank you. I will.”

“Be you well.”

“Wait—a moment, my lady?”

“Yes?”

The girl looks to be thinking hard about something. “Might I—might I give you something, in return?”

Éowyn is surprised, but she nods. The girl reaches into the small satchel at her side, and brings out a simple knife in a leather sheath.

“It’s—” She looks a bit anxious now. “It was given me by one of the men of my country, a captain, after the Siege but before the Hosts departed. He said we were to be armed, even the women. I thought it was so that we could defend ourselves, but later I learned it wasn’t for that.” She pauses. “We were to keep them, so that we could die by our own hands, rather than by those of the Enemy.”

Éowyn is silent for a few moments. Then she says, quietly, “I have wondered what manner of people you were, at times. High and fair, yes, and proud. Your pride takes a strange form, now and again.”

“Yes,” says the girl, and she smiles. “But I no longer have need of it.” She holds out the knife.

Éowyn raises her eyebrows. “And you think that I do?”

“I—no.” The girl shakes her head. “Not like that. But I was here. I heard the cries of that fell beast. We all did. It made it seem as though the world could end, just with that sound. And then I heard—” Éowyn is studying her intently, now, and the girl shifts a bit under her gaze, but goes on. “I heard that you stopped it, my lady. I don’t know that I’m explaining very well. But I would like you to have this.”

Éowyn considers the girl for a few moments more: a strange people, and yet she will cross the river to dwell in their lands. Then she nods slowly, and takes the knife from her, instinctively hefting it in her palm with a warrior’s judgment. A good balance.

“I will have it from you, if I may also have a promise,” she tells the girl. “We should all hope for peace, with all our hearts. Yet should war ever again assail you,” she goes on, “you go to your death standing up, or not at all.”

The girl blinks, taken aback. But then she says, “I promise.”

“Very well.” The knife disappears into Éowyn’s bag.

“Safe journey, my lady.” The girl begins to curtsey again, but then she hesitates for a moment and straightens up. She gives a salute her in the manner of her people, right hand over her heart.

Éowyn smiles, and then places a palm over her own heart in response. “Fear no darkness,” she says. “Waes thu hael.”

***

August.

The heat lies thick on the upper circles. Aradîr wipes his brow, loosens the collar of his surcoat. The surgery corridor is quiet, today. Valacar is alone, cleaning up. When Aradîr knocks on the doorframe, the surgeon turns around and gives a visible start—Aradîr can’t say that he’s sorry about that.

“Have you taken to doing rounds, now?” Valacar asks him, setting down his towel.

Aradîr does not rise to the bait. “I’ve only come down to make a few inquiries,” he says. “How is your apprentice?”

“Doing well; she learns quickly, and she’s seen her fair share of blood, already. It might not be a bad idea to start them a few years older than sixteen, from now on. They’re steadier on their feet.”

“That can be taken up with the Warden,” Aradîr nods. “I suppose we need not ask them to begin so young, this next generation. And how do the other men treat her?”

“They know her. They’re polite.”

“I suppose you see to that.”

Valacar shrugs. “So does she.” He picks up his towel again, but Aradîr does not move. “Is there anything else?”

“I was very sorry to hear about your apprentice—Laeron, I mean. My condolences, though they are late.”

A pause. “Thank you.”

“Were you close, the two of you?”

The other man’s grey eyes narrow, though when next he speaks his voice is still level. “I hope you aren’t implying anything.”

“No,” Aradîr says. As a younger man, he recalls, Valacar was never one for a fight, at least not with him. Now, he’s quick to the defense—not that Aradîr can fault him for that. “I am not. I always assumed you would be a good teacher, patient as you are. Not like me.”

Valacar blinks. “Thank you,” he repeats, surprise in his voice, this time. “I enjoy it.”

“Is this what you wanted, Valacar?”

“What do you mean? This?” He opens his palms to indicate the things around him—the towels, the washbasin, the table and the knives lined up on their tray like an array of miniature weapons. Which they are, Aradîr supposes. “No, not really. You know that. But this is what I have, and so I make the best of it. And I’d thank you not to interfere with that.”

Aradîr shakes his head. “No. Did you want to be as you are, now?”

“Mildly disappointed, you mean? Alone?”

“Well?”

“I hadn’t much of a choice, there.”

Aradîr smiles a little. “You had the same choice that I did.” He pauses. “But I suppose you always had too much affection for women, to get married.”

“Me? Too little affection, you mean.”

“Too much. For if there were any woman whom you favored sufficiently to court, you would certainly befriend her. And if she were a friend to you, indeed, you would hardly care to—” He pauses, considering his choice of words, and goes ahead, anyway. “To subject her to such a union.” He shakes his head. “Too much affection. I could see that about you, right away.”

Valacar pauses at that, and Aradîr imagines that he is trying to work out whether or not to take that last as a compliment. He probably will not; he’s always been conservative, that way. “I take it you never had that reservation?”

Aradîr shrugs. “I knew what my ambitions were. And my duties.”

“And what would those be?”

“Then? To sire an heir, of course, and to sit at council, as my father had. And now, to watch over the Houses. To protect their interests, and see that those within them can go about their work, the best that they are able.”

Valacar should know that this is as close to an apology as he will ever hear of him, and if he is wise he will not press it any further.

“Very well, then,” he says, quietly. Wise. Then: “How is your wife, Aradîr?” If there is no particular warmth in this question, neither is there any malice.

“She’s fine, thank you. Happy to be settled at home, again.”

They fall silent. Valacar stares at the floor. Aradîr is able to study him at his leisure; he recalls him as a young apprentice from Dol Amroth, thin and coltish, bewildered and wide-eyed in the heat of a City summer not unlike this one. Not there by choice; a book always in his hand the only outward sign of his defiance. A memory of desire flares up in him once more, and he allows himself to hold it up to the light and examine it. But only for a moment. He submerges it, as he does with a great many things.

Valacar looks up at him again.

“Be you well,” says Aradîr, and he turns and walks down the corridor to his next appointment.

***

September.

Her daughter sits in the kitchen and practices writing, her hand growing steadier with each page. The mother wants to shake her head, sometimes, at the distance her girl seems to have gotten from her in this short time. Scarcely had she returned from the coast with the boys, when her daughter had announced she would be putting in for an apprenticeship as a surgeon—the only girl, and the first. She is proud for her, and a little afraid.

What’s more, she sometimes seems a different girl, altogether. Her voice is lower, and there is a sharpness in her mannerisms that was not there before. At times she falls into strange half-haunted reveries. She starts easily, and seems to hope that no one will notice. Her mother notices.

But then she will shake her head in wonder and dismay at all this, and then the girl she left behind at the Great Gate will be there once more, resolute and sweet in equal measures when she needs to be. She will be twenty soon.

She goes to the kitchen and kisses the top of her daughter’s dark head. She was out buying candles today, and smells, not unpleasantly, of beeswax. She peers over her shoulder at the words she is writing.

“What is it today, dear one?” she asks.

Her daughter smiles. “Nothing much. Only some things that happened today. Some things that I saw at market.” She pauses. “I can teach you, if you want, Mother.” It’s an offer she makes often, and always with the same earnestness. “I’m teaching the boys.”

The mother laughs gently, as she always does. “Thank you, but I’m quite sure I’m too old for that, now.” She never learned; never needed to. “I’ll leave that to younger, quicker minds.”

Her daughter, as always, protests that her mother is as young and quick as anyone. After a while she goes back to her writing, lost in some world of her own.

Later she leaves the paper to dry on the table. The mother will glance at it as she starts that evening’s supper; another set of signs that are beyond her knowledge.

***

October.

The Dwarf watches as his crew fits stone to white stone, carefully carving and shaping. Over the past months he has been able to see it taking form before his eyes, this new birth of the City. He has grown to love this place; not only for his friend who sits on the throne, but also in its own right. Often has he been doubtful of the works of Men, at least those which he has seen in his lifetime. Many times their craftsmen don’t seem to respect their materials, trying to work against their grain, building their towers too high. Insufficiently rooted to the earth, he thinks. But this Númenorean city of Aragorn’s and Boromir’s is different. He has come to appreciate the way it embraces the mountain, and the strength with which it withstood the onslaught. On the cracked pieces of masonry he sometimes finds intact sections of scrollwork, carved patterns and faces. He will find a way to restore them.

A young boy stands off to the side; he’s been there for a while, now, watching intently. The Dwarf beckons the lad over.

“May I help you, young master?” he asks.

“I’m just watching, sir. I like to see you Dwarves work; how do you move so quickly, with those heavy stones?”

He smiles. “Practice, I imagine.” He holds out a hand. “Gimli, son of Gloin. At your service.”

The lad’s handshake is firm. “Bergil, son of Beregond, at yours, as well.”

“Bergil.” Gimli searches his memory. “I know that name. A friend of Peregrin Took, I believe?” Bergil nods, grinning. “And so, a friend of mine, as well.”

“Thank you, sir! I was wondering,” Bergil continues. “What your plans for this courtyard might be? I have an interest in it,” he adds, somewhat cryptically.

“Well, let us see.” Gimli unfolds a paper upon which he has made a number of detailed sketches. “Yes. A large fountain, in the center. ‘Twere up to me and my fellows,” he indicates the other Dwarves with a gesture, “we’d have nothing but good solid stonework, here. However, my friend informs me that there ought to be more trees in this City. More gardens,” he says, a mild edge of skepticism in his voice. “And so there will be some grass here. We’ll lay sod in beds in the stone, like this. And young trees, as well, at least four or five. Though that is all under the charge of my friend and his folk, so for more say on that, you shall have to ask him.” He glances at the boy. “Does that please you, Master Bergil?”

“It does. Very much!”

Gimli smiles. “I am glad of it.” 

And he is. A little green to break up the expanses of white cannot be so bad, after all. A few leaves and shoots among the stone. So long as there is something strong, to guard it.

***

November.

There is a new crop of apprentices in the Houses. Standing before Ioreth in the atrium are four girls and two boys, each around twelve or thirteen. Too young to have stayed for the Siege—except for the boys, she supposes, who might have stayed as message runners. These two did not. So; too young to have stayed for the Siege, but more than old enough to remember the Shadow in the years preceding it. They are still war children, Ioreth think. She wonders when children will come to her free of that wide-eyed and watchful look. She hopes she will live to see that day. She should, after all—she saw the King return, and so anything is possible, now.

Kindness, she tells them. Kindness, most of all. We will need your cleverness and your bravery and your strength. But most of all your kindness. And you have that in abundance; I can tell.

The children look at one another. A couple of them smile, first at one another, and then at her.

Better, Ioreth thinks.

***

December.

“So, the rumors are true,” Valacar says. “You’re leaving us?”

“I suppose you could put it that way,” Fíriel replies. It is a bright morning and they are walking on the Second Circle, their feet crunching on fresh snow. Their breaths show in ghostly plumes before them. “Though it sounds dire, like that.” She smiles. “I’m only getting married, after all.”

After the Siege, one of the men she’d come to know in the Houses was an Ithilien Ranger, wounded during his company’s retreat to the walls before the Black Captain. A few years older than she, and widowed when he was quite young. No children. Not much for talking; he preferred to listen, and he did so with a patience that got her attention. Fíriel is quiet, herself, and guarded in no small part. But he managed to draw her out just a bit. And then a bit more, before he had gone off to the Black Gate. His departure was a bright shard of pain in her heart among the greater worry that took her.

He fought there and survived, and came back to Minas Tirith, and back to the Houses again and again over the following months. At a certain point, in fact, he had drawn her out so much, and she him, that both realized that they were simply content to stand together from now on. 

“I never thought I’d get married,” she says. 

Valacar smiles. “And with the trappings of aristocracy, no less.”

She rolls her eyes. “Hardly. That would be embarrassing. Captain—that is, the Lord Steward, has always been uncommon close to the men under his command. Saelas still refers to him as ‘Captain Faramir,’” she adds, by way of explanation. “It’s not surprising that Saelas would want him to do the ceremony, like others of his fellows who will be wed, nor that the Steward would consent. That’s all. You will come, won’t you?” she asks.

“I don’t suppose I have much of a choice?”

She gives him a little shove. “No. You really don’t.”

They walk a few more paces in silence. He is looking at her and smiling.

“What?” she asks.

“I’m just trying to picture you in Ithilien. In the woods. You could live in a tent; maybe a cave, if this Ranger of yours is extravagant.”

“I’ve about had it, with you. They’ve got houses in Ithilien, you know. And just as much need for healers as anywhere else in Gondor, I would imagine,” she adds. “Perhaps more.”

“And they’ll be lucky to have such a one as you.”

“Thank you,” she nods.

“What am I going to do without you?” he asks, rather abruptly.

“What kind of a question is that?” she replies. “You sound as if I’ll be going to far Harad, not an easy ride south. But you’ll do what you’ve always done, I imagine: work yourself to the bone. Make people angry. Also, you’ve your apprentice to look after.”

“Or, she looks after me. I can’t decide which it is.” He pauses. “Where are we going, anyhow?”

“Nowhere important. You’ll see.” She looks around. “Ah, perhaps we’re here already.”

“I’ll miss you,” he says, looking at her. The hood of his cloak is down around his shoulders, and he’s got snow in his hair. He’s still rather handsome, she thinks. She can see in him a trace of the listless, funny young man who caught her eye in the dim tavern light when she was a girl. A girl old beyond her years, it was true, but a girl nevertheless.

“And I’ll miss you,” she replies. And she will.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” she asks, taken aback.

He shrugs. “For everything.”

She takes his arm. “Then I should thank you, too. For everything.” She pauses. “Yes, I believe we’re here.”

They’re standing on a stretch of stone, bare except for its blanket of snow, near the end of an alley, close to the walls. He looks at her quizzically.

“Don’t you remember?” she asks. “This was where we met. Or, rather, this was the site of that tinderbox of a tavern where we met.”

He furrows his brow. “Is it, really? That was a long time ago.”

“A different age, practically,” she smiles, but the smile quickly fades. “Valar,” she murmurs. “What a year we’ve had of it.” She shakes her head. “At times I didn’t think we’d live to see it out, that’s for sure.”

“No, me neither.”

She stares at the clean snow, and thinks about the course of her life, surely as obscure and twisting as any warren of alleys on the lower circles. And if any part of it fills her with regret, she still cannot say that she wished it hadn’t happened; for it has all brought her here, after all. And that is something remarkable.

Valacar’s mind must be in the distant past, as well, for he says, “I always thought it would have been too damp to be a tinderbox, though. What a wretched place that was.”

“You don’t need to remind me of that,” she smirks.

“I recall that it pleased me to no end to imagine what my father’s reaction would have been, had he known his only son was frequenting such ill-reputed watering-holes.”

“I suppose that’s why you and your friends went there, to begin with.”

“That, and the drinks were cheap.”

She snorts. “The drinks were poison.”

“Ah, well. They were both, then.” He pauses. “Though I suppose it was a tinderbox, at the end, wasn’t it? It must have gone up in flames, like most of the buildings in this quarter.”

She tries to picture that. “Good,” she says, and she takes his arm again and leads him away. Their footsteps remain for a little while, but then are covered with snow.

***

January.

In winter, Elloth takes to lingering in the dispensary late into the evening. She lights the torches and spreads her mixing bowls out on the table. She can work for hours in the silence, letting the fragrances of herbs surround her as she distills and crushes and mixes. She enjoys watching things set, taking their final form. She’s been trying a few new things.

One night her friend comes in—she knows where to find Elloth. The other girl’s hands are freshly scrubbed, and if she was wearing a smock, she has removed it. Still, there are telltale splotches of red-brown on the front of her surcoat. Without preamble, she sits on a stool by Elloth’s table and slumps forward, her arms folded on the wooden surface and her face in her arms.

“Don’t upset my things,” says Elloth, at which her friend reaches out and pokes blindly at the bottle nearest her. Elloth chooses to ignore this, and asks, “What was it, this time?”

“A lady in her confinement.” Her friend’s voice is muffled by the cloth of her sleeves. “She was bleeding something awful. The midwife frighted, and sent to the Houses for help.”

“And?”

“Mother and babe are resting well enough, now, though both are quite weak. Valacar says that if they make it through the next few days, they will probably be all right.” She takes her face out of her arms, then, and looks up at Elloth with shadowed, red-rimmed eyes. “I am never having children.”

Elloth smirks. “Never say never.” She leans over to check on a mass of leaves which are soaking nearby, dipping a finger into the bowl to try their texture. “Was it a boy, or a girl?”

“Was it—oh,” her friend rubs her eyes. “It was a little boy. Her first child.”

Elloth is silent for a few moments, then says, “I hear that in the Riddermark, it is custom to spread out a number of objects before a baby boy when he’s six months of age. Seven, for girls. The first thing that the child reaches for is said to be his interest for life.”

“Really?” Her friend considers this. “Where did you hear that?”

“Ceorth,” Elloth says.

“Ceorth?” The other girl straightens up, interested. “When were you talking to him?”

“We talk quite often, actually.”

“Do you?” her friend says. “I like him.”

Elloth nods. “So do I. I daresay I might like him more than you do.”

“Elloth?”

Elloth only smiles.

“So, what was the first thing he reached for when he was six months old?”

“Oh, a little wooden horse, I think it was. Most of them do, I would imagine.” She pauses. “He’s been spending a good deal of time with one of the stable-masters. He says they may yet devise some way to let him ride, again.”

“That’s good news.” Her friend smiles, and takes a clean wooden cup from the shelf and helps herself to the pitcher of fresh water that the herbalists always keep handy in the dispensary. Normally, Elloth would take her to task for this presumption, but she is in high spirits. 

“Ceorth,” her friend repeats, still smiling. “I wouldn’t have thought…” She stops herself.

“You wouldn’t have thought what?”

“It’s nothing.”

“No. Say it.”

Her friend shrugs, apologetic. “It’s just that I wouldn’t have thought you would like someone like him. You always seemed to—you want things to be…”

“Perfect?” Elloth finishes for her. There is no anger in her voice, only contemplation. The friend inclines her head in tacit agreement. “I still do,” Elloth continues. “But perhaps I have different ideas about the meaning of the word, now. What does it matter to me that he’s missing a leg, save that maybe it will take him longer to learn how to dance once more?”

Her friend nods, her smile wider, now, though her eyes are still tired. Elloth waits for her to raise her cup to her lips.

“Besides,” she adds, “I can assure you that all the rest of him is quite sound.” Then she watches, pleased, as the other girl struggles mightily not to spit out her drink.

***

February.

In mid-morning, an overburdened pulley rope on the Fifth Circle snaps, and a heavy block of stone falls to the pavement and cracks. No one is hurt, but the sound can be heard all the way up on the next circle, in the surgery where an apprentice is sharpening a bone-saw. She starts at the noise, and the instrument slips, the teeth catching at the underside of her left forearm. Her whetstone falls to the floor, in echo of the greater accident that has just happened. 

She tends to the cut, herself; when her teacher comes in, she has wrapped her arm in a clean cloth which is quickly turning red. She braces it awkwardly against her body for pressure. With her right hand she unwinds a roll of bandages.

“Valar, what happened?” he asks.

“The saw slipped,” she says.

“Sit down. Let me see.” She does, pressing on the cloth with her right hand even as he unwraps the portion closest to her wrist.

“It’s mostly just the skin,” she says.

“You’re right,” he says, after a moment. “Does it need stitches?”

She leans over, peers at the wound, and shakes her head. “Not deep enough. The edges are close together, too.”

“Very good.” He wraps the cloth again, holds it for her to maintain the pressure; it doesn’t take much effort, her arm is so small in his hands. “As your surgeon, your pulse is a bit fast for my liking. What should I tell you to do?”

She takes a breath through her nose, deep and slow. Then another one. “That’s right,” he says. “Where should your hand be?” She bends her elbow and puts her forearm parallel to her body, her hand facing up. Together they wait for her heart to slow and for the bleeding to stop. 

“What were you doing?” he chides her after a few moments. “That was close to your wrist. You have to be careful. You know that.”

“There was a noise,” she says, quietly. “I started.”

“Oh?”

“I still start easily, sometimes, after all this time. Especially when I’m alone.” He says nothing. 

She grimaces in pain. “Am I the sort of girl you trust with a knife, Valacar?”

The heel of his hand is smudged red. Soon they can clean the wound, and tie on a proper bandage. She might want to have a sling for it, for a little while, to keep it steady. Nevertheless, it is her left arm, so she will still be able to work, if she wants to. She will want to, he thinks. Even if she does not know it yet. He thinks he can see the young woman she is already becoming: unflinching, steady of heart and hand. Brave.

“You are,” he says. “Believe me.”

***

March.

The young woman lifts her skirts to her ankles, then to her knees, and wades into the river. The young man who’s with her says, “Be careful.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Isn’t it cold?”

“It’s not too bad.”

The banks of the Anduin are thronged with people; they are gathered here because one year ago today, there was a day with no dawn. Now it is dusk, and when the sun sets they harbor no fear that it will not rise tomorrow.

The young man lights a candle, and then lights a second off of its flame. All around him, the people of Minas Tirith are doing the same: then slowly lowering the lights inside lanterns. They are simple paper things, stretched over light wooden frames. Most important is the base.

The sides of the lanterns both mute the candlelight and enlarge its reach. The sides glow a soft yellow, like strange square moons you can hold on your palm. 

“Now?” someone asks.

“I think so. Now.”

One by one, they lower their lanterns to the surface of the river. They bob in the current, but stay afloat, flimsy as they are: most important is the base. They move along the water in groups, moving apart and then coming back together, casting their reflections downwards as if sounding the depths. The young woman watches them go by her knees.

“Do you want yours, now?” the man asks her. She says she does, and he hands her a lit lantern from his place on the bank. By now this part of the river is glowing. She holds her lantern by its edges and touches it to the water, feels the current moving beneath her hands. She holds it, and then she lets it go. She watches it as it drifts away, joining the others.

“Now yours?” she asks. To her surprise, he removes his shoes, rolls up his trousers and joins her.

He curses as his feet hit the river bottom. “You said it wasn’t cold.”

“I said it wasn’t bad.”

He takes his lantern from the bank. “This one’s for Tarondor,” he tells her.

“He’d like that,” she says. That is how it goes, today. One candle for every life that the Darkness snuffed out a year ago. For the ones who will not move forward with the turning of the year; the ones, she thinks, who will be twenty years old forever.

Someone has been sitting in rooms and courtyards, counting, making sure the numbers are adequate. She’s not sure who, but it’s Minas Tirith, after all. That’s how things work.

He places his lantern in the river. He keeps his gaze on it as it drifts away from him, as it masses with the others. He watches it as it grows smaller and smaller, and finally until it disappears around a bend. He is pleased to see that the light does not go out. He puts his arm around the woman beside him, holds her tightly against him. She leans into him, her head against his chest, listening to his heart beat.

Recently she’s taken to studying maps; there’s something about them that she loves. She tries to picture the course of the Anduin, and the journey of the lights. They will travel south, she knows, past the stark ruins of Osgiliath and the hills of Emyn Arnen, and from there through the forests of South Ithilien. And though she knows that the candles will all have burned down by this time, she also images them floating west, down past Pelargir and the Poros, winding through the braided mouths of the Anduin. And perhaps, just perhaps, a few solitary lights will make it to the sea, bobbing in salt water as the tide takes them out. They will pass out of the shore’s sight. 

And from there, who knows?

For now, they are here on this section of the river that runs through the Pelennor, and the water is crowded with lights. The people speak in hushed tones, their voices nearly overmastered by that of the current.

The man and woman climb out of the river and sit on the bank. Slowly the crowd begins to disperse, people drifting off in couples or small groups as most of the lights go round the bend.

A few lanterns remain, yet. She sits silently, watching the last lights float away. Night is falling, now. In calmer patches the surface of the river will mirror the stars, unmoving, where the fallible little candles once floated. Still, she will wait for the last lantern to disappear into the darkness. Only then will she get up and put her shoes on, walk back across the field, now beginning to grow green once more, and through the Great Gate. Up the steps to the house she shares with her mother and her brother and cousin. And then to bed, and tomorrow, back to work, for there is still much to be done.

But for now, she waits. And Beren waits beside her.


	24. Epilogue: Kites

_In the end, of course, a true war story is never about war._

Tim O’Brien, “How to Tell a True War Story”

 

 

F.A. 14

The woman walks along the riverbank, arms folded in front of her. She glances at the young man beside her.

“Nervous?” she asks.

“Yes,” he replies. She’s taken to him better than she thought she would, this apprentice of hers. He’s a tanner’s son from Lebennin, a serious, sharp-eyed boy.

Her previous two apprentices were girls, and good ones. The first practices in the Houses, now; the second left her apprenticeship one year in, returning to Lossarnach to care for an ailing mother. The woman hopes she will come back, but doubts it. There are still only a few girls who come to study surgery, but their numbers have grown a bit over the years. This is the first boy with which the Warden has entrusted her, and she hopes that in some way this is a sign of faith in her. It is also most likely due to her reputation for sternness and for precision; every bit of that reputation was hard won with each incision and each drop of blood on the front of her dress.

Because he is a boy, this apprentice, he is also the first one of hers to leave for the field. Tomorrow he will remove the white stripe from the shoulder of his coat. He’ll set out with a party which will follow the Anduin as it winds south, to take up a post as surgeon to one of the Poros companies: a border patrol. The War is over, but war is not—not the threat of it, at the very least. She will miss him.

“That’s all right,” she says. “If there’s only one thing I want you to remember, what do you think it is?”

“Keep everything clean.”

“Yes; well, besides that?”

“Don’t panic?”

“And…” He looks at her, blinking. “Trust yourself,” she says. “Trust your hands and your eyes. You can, now. That’s how I know my work with you is finished.”

“Is it?”

“It is. You’ll be fine.” She pauses. “I’m proud of you.”

He smiles, looks down at his feet. It’s the first time he’s heard that from her. “Thank you.”

“It’s the truth,” she says. She stops and shades her eyes; it’s a bright day, and the City stands like a beacon at the edge of the field. One of the figures standing further down the riverbank is waving. “Let’s go see what my daughter wants.”

Melieth, her oldest, is standing barefoot by the water. At ten, she’s a pale, dark-haired girl, slender but strong, a gleam of mischief always in her blue eyes. She is fond of removing her shoes and scrambling up trees. She says that she wants to be a surgeon, like her mother, though privately the woman sometimes doubts that the child will have the patience for it; you can tell, even when they’re this young. No matter; she will find her own way. No one will ever mistake her for anything but a Minas Tirith girl, her mother thinks with a fierce pride, born in the early years of the Fourth Age. The Age of Men, as they would call it.

Meli’s younger brother is standing beside her, shifting foot to foot. A bright handsome little boy of seven, with much of his sister’s restlessness: Tarondor. 

A gift-name, they call it, even though the giver of the gift is usually long gone by the time the child receives it. Elloth’s second-born is called Laeron. Bergil’s little girl is Ioreth. 

Sometimes the woman, Meli’s mother, thinks it’s unfair, what they’ve done to their children, burdening them with such names, even if they’ve done it out of love. At times she even worries that they are almost as weighted-down as her own generation was, only with the echo of the Darkness, rather than the thing itself. But then, she thinks, these children, too, are strong enough to bear it. And in the way of happy, stubborn children, they always come through with music and peculiarities that are all their own, unhaunted by the loss of those whose names they carry. Unknowable, in the end, as she was when she was a girl. As all children should be.

Her husband is kneeling beside the children, bent to his task, untangling strings with patient hands. She is glad to have him here; after the War, he stayed on with his company, in the only work he’d ever known. New campaigns call him away now and again, and again and again she can only kiss him goodbye and pray that he comes back once more. And she waits. Women are good at that.

And now she finds she is having a hard enough time letting go of her apprentice, though she will not tell him that. She still doesn’t know where her own mother found the strength to leave her at the Great Gate that day, or how her husband’s parents were able to leave their son standing in the armory when he turned seventeen. But these are ordinary occurrences, in the great scheme of things. Their mothers and fathers had broken their grips on the hands and shoulders of their children and watched them recede into the distance, both the ones who would return and the ones who would not. They are their own beings, these sons and daughters, just as she was at nineteen.

“May I try?” her apprentice asks.

“Please,” Beren smiles, and he gets up and stands beside his wife, shaking out tired hands. The tanner’s son from Lebennin gets down on the ground with Meli and Tarondor, good-naturedly taking directions from the children as he tries to unknot the strings on the kite. It’s a graceful thing, red canvas stretched over a thin, strong frame. It was a birthday gift to Meli from her paternal grandfather, who was wise enough to recognize that the girl might enjoy yet another reason to run.

“There,” says the young man, as he coils the string neatly in his hand. He stands up and gives the line to Meli.

“What should you say?” the woman asks.

“Thank you,” the children chorus, and then resume their squabble as to who has the next turn.

“Thank you,” Beren smiles at the apprentice, and places a hand on his shoulder. The young man shrugs, grinning. 

Meli seems to have come out the victor, for she’s holding up a hand to the wind, now, as her father has taught her. Without further comment, she takes off at a fierce sprint in the direction of the City.

“Be careful!” the mother calls after her. The ground is uneven in spots. 

Her husband puts a hand on her arm. “Let her go.”

And so she does. She watches her daughter running along the river, paying out string until she judges the tension right. And then the kite catches on the edge of the wind, and wheels and dips like a strange bird above the old battlefield. The mother watches it until it is lost in the glare of the sun, and she has to turn her eyes away for the brightness.


End file.
